With declining murder rates, the issue of whether or not the death sentence penalty shall remain in effect must be discussed. Although there have been studies which suggest that a rise in executions result in a decline in murder rates, when deciding whether or not the death penalty should remain part of the United States criminal justice system, the high expenses and morality must also be considered.
In recent studies, death sentences and murder rates have decreased dramatically. According to Liptak in his article Does Death Penalty Save Lives? A New Debate, "For each inmate put to death, the studies say, 3 to 18 murders are prevented." This argues that the number of recent executions have decreased the number of murder rates, and with less murder rates there are less cases to penalize with death sentences, thereby resulting in less death sentences and less murder rates. This connection between death sentences and murder rates is still merely a theory, however. As Liptak further mentions, "'It seems unlikely,' Professor Donohue and Professor Wolfers concluded in their Stanford article, 'that any study based only on recent U.S. data can find a reliable link between homicide and execution rates.'" There has not been enough recent data on death sentences and murder rates to provide sufficient evidence in supporting the claim relating death sentences to the number of murders. Therefore, it is safe to assume that murder rates may fluctuate regardless of the number of death penalties. Furthermore, the expenses of death sentences have recently increased. In her article Death Sentences Drop To Historic Lows In 2011 Sullivan writes, "The practice has been flawed, and it's getting very expensive." Execution has been known to further complicate things, especially due to its high expenses. In addition, the money spent on each execution could be spent on something else. Liptak says, "'Capital punishment is very expensive,' he said, 'so if you choose to spend money on capital punishment you are choosing not to spend it somewhere else, like policing.'" The vast sums of money used to execute offenders could instead be used to finance better reinforcements of the law to decrease crime rates in general. Executions do have there benefits, but overall it is more beneficial to remove the death penalty from the United States criminal justice system.
