75-05-A3
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Capital Punishment
TranscriptAre the liberals right when they say that capital punishment can't deter violent crime? I'll be right back. For nearly a generation the arguments about capital punishment have raged. For most of this time the forces against it have made steady headway, climaxed by the Supreme Court decision in 1972 which struck down existing statutes as being discriminatory. But as the rate of violent crime spirals ever upward not only in the cities but increasingly in suburbs and rural areas as well capital punishment is making a comeback. The police and prosecutors say they need it and every time it's been put to a vote of the people as in California it's passed by a big margin. But the opposition is stubborn. It is cruel and unusual punishment they say, forgetting the cruel and not so unusual punishment being dealt out daily by criminals on our streets. It discriminates against the black and the poor they say, even though the new wave of state laws on the heels of the Supreme Court decision have been meticulously written so that the punishment fits the crime and not the criminal. But these arguments are trivial compared to their central one, which is capital punishment does not deter homicide. This statement has been repeated so often that I'm sure a large number of people now accept it as fact. Well it isn't. The truth is capital punishment in this country had become a dead letter long before the Supreme Court decision. There hasn't been a legal execution in eight years. While more than sixteen hundred were executed in the 1930s, nearly thirteen hundred in the next decade and over seven hundred in the 50s, the figure fell to just 51 in 1960 and 15 in 1964. So as early as the 1950s it's clear that capital punishment was not being carried out frequently enough to have any deterrent effect. In the period of widespread practice of capital punishment from 1935 to 1955, murder in the United States fell 30 percent. In the late 1950s, just as capital punishment was becoming controversial and less used, the 20-year decline turned around. The increase was mild at first but during the 1960s when capital punishment died out and ceased all together after 1967, homicides more than doubled in little over a decade. In 1968 the first year there were no executions at all there were five thousand two hundred and forty more murders. Today the crime situation is so bad that a recent M.I.T. study found that, quote, "An urban American boy born in 1974 is more likely to die by murder than an American soldier in world war II was to die in combat." Unquote. In some cities the study found a boy born in 1974 has a one in 14 chance of dying by murder if present trends continue. And according to the F.B.I., the trend is getting worse. Capital punishment is no light matter. Any judge who has ever handed down a death sentence will tell you that. On the other hand though homicide is becoming a light matter in the absence of sufficient threat of punishment. The rise of homicide and the decline of capital punishment at the same time in the same country may be a coincidence but you can hardly say it proves that capital punishment doesn't deter murder. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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