s found. The authors concluded that the "number of executions was unrelated to murder rates in general, and that the number of executions was unrelated to felony rates." (Sorenson, et al, 1999)
Capital Punishment advocates will state that children learn morals based on the Death Penalty. That they will learn to make a correlation between committing a murder as taking someone's life from them and knowing that if they commit murder they must willingly give up their life in return.
Several studies conducted after Capital Punishment reinstatements concluded that the Death Penalty was not a deterrent, but in fact, criminal activity with murder increased. The Bailey study of the Death Penalty reinstatement in the state of Oklahoma study sub-groups of murder commissions, examining the period between 1989 and 1991. Bailey found that "there was no evidence for a deterrent effect. He did, however, find that there was s significant increase in stranger killings and non-felony stranger killings after Oklahoma resumed executions after a 25-year moratorium. (Bailey, 1998) A study by Ernie Thompson reviewed homicide rates in Los Angeles before and after California's execution of Robert Harris in 1992. Thompson found "slight increases in homicides during the eight months following the execution." (Thompson, 1999)
Children in the United States often do not witness Capital Punishment carried out. Most executions are not televised and when publicly viewed are witnessed by invitation only. The Timothy McVeigh execution was carried via close circuit television to victims of the Oklahoma City bombing who petitioned to view it. The judge in the case was adamant that it becomes a spectacle as McVeigh wanted an audience. The Centers for Disease Control recently released a study reporting the homicide rate among children in the U.S. as compared to 25 other industrialized nations. The study was recorded between 1950 and 1993. The CDC (...