Rational Choice Theory Vs Capital Punishment

Capital punishment has been practiced for hundred decades. In the past it was crueler, combined with torture thus making the death of convict as harsh as possible. Though now torture is generally prohibited, the death penalty is practiced in many countries and even in the as developed ones as the US. The death penalty has always been a big topic for debates as it is quite an arguable one. Though some people find capital punishment to be effective, the experience has shown that death penalty tends to be expensive, ineffective, arbitrary and too risky. To understand the issue more thoroughly the framework of rational choice theory will be used. Rational choice theory is both economic and criminological principle around the idea that all actions …show more content…
In fact, this statement is quite deceptive. If comparing two US states with and without the usage of the death penalty the difference is obvious. Though it is quite surprising but statistics shows that the crime rate in non-death penalty states has always been lower. In the year 2003 the difference between crime rate of two states (with and without capital punishment) was the biggest 44% in favor of states without death penalty (Cooper, 2014.) In year 2014 FBI Uniform Crime Report showed that the South had the highest murder rate. The South accounts for over 80% of executions. The Northeast, which has less than 1% of all executions, had the lowest murder rate. As per another review of the previous and present presidents of the nation's top scholastic criminological social orders, 88% of these specialists dismisses the idea that capital punishment acts as a deterrent to murder. (Radelet & Lacock, 2009). All these statistics imply that one of the primary reasons to use capital punishment because of its efficiency does not work anymore. The death penalty is not effective in reducing the crime rate, which initially was one of its goals. Thus, if viewing this issue from a rational choice theory perspective, it is absolutely not necessary to use something that is not effective in the fight against crime …show more content…
Being rational and making rational decisions in the most serious and important cases is our obligation. In order to make completely rational and analyzed decision, we should have some thoroughly analyzed reasons. In the usage of death penalty issue there are few reasons. Firstly, death penalty is extremely expensive compared to the lifetime incarceration. Secondly, the crime rate still tends to be lower in the states without death penalty, rather than vice versa. Then, arbitrariness of death penalty like, geographic arbitrariness, disability to afford good attorney, racial prejudice always have their influence on the final decision of the court about the execution. And last but not least, high risks of sentencing to death an innocent life. Thus, if putting on scales all these factors and implementing a rational choice theory, the usage of the capital punishment would be imprudent and