It has been found that the greatest deterrent is “likelihood of getting caught”, and not the actual penalty. Think of the war on drugs. No matter how harsh they made the consequences, the drug trade continued. It’s like this: how likely are you to return a wallet you found to a lost and found if a cop was watching you, versus if you were out in the middle of the woods when you found the wallet?
It doesn’t matter if the penalty for not returning the wallet is death. If the likelihood of you getting caught is tiny enough, you will feel less terrified of playing those odds. Or at least, the average person will.
The death penalty isn’t a deterrent if you’re certain it will never apply to you.
I think your logic is flawed. Obviously the death penalty is a serious deterrent. It’s not going to stop everybody, but it will most certainly stop many people.
I disagree that the deterrence would be significant enough to justify the death penalty. But I don’t think our disagreement matters. Even assuming what you say is true, it’s not worth the lives of the innocent people who will be found guilty and executed, in my opinion. I also think it’s a bad idea to give the government the power to kill its own citizens. So even if you are correct, I have other objections that outweigh the potential deterrence factor.
