A comment on a comment: In for a penny, in for a pound
One of my students commented on my prior post “In for a penny, in for a pound.” My reply was getting too long for the blog editor, so I am taking this route, a post to comment on a comment.
Rape and murder are a bit independent of one another but there are undoubtedly benefits to the sickos of killing their victims, as I mentioned, dead victims neither identify nor testify. But, these benefits, whether independent between crimes or not, need to be though as separate from the costs, and need to be analyzed as separate or independent.
While I would generally argue that rape is less of a crime than murder, I don’t need to make that case here to argue that the death penalty is dangerously too harsh of a penalty for rape alone. I will concede that these two crimes may be equally serious. All I really need to argue here is that the combination of rape and murder should receive a harsher penalty than either alone.
Here is the point. If we give someone a death sentence, we can do little more to them than that. What more could be done? The only penalty worse than the death penalty would be to torture the criminal before they die, as happened in the closing scenes of Brave Heart. That would only serve to make us sickos, too. When the MARGINAL PENALTY drops to zero, as it does for murdering the child rape victim, we will see more murders of child rape victims, independent of the marginal benefits, or as economists say, Ceteris Paribus.
I would argue that neither single murders alone, nor child rapes alone should be punished by the death penalty (see the Tollison article cited in my original post on Jessica’s law and the perverted effects of stiff penalties, or at least read the abstract to that article). Rather, I would argue that only when a single muder is combined with other murder, or with rape, should the death penalty be imposed. Otherwise the marginal penalty for additional crimes falls to zero if we rush to impose the death penalty.
There is an additional problem that I have not mentioned previously. Sometimes, when sentences are seen as too harsh for a crime, especially when judges or juries see them as overly harsh, instead of imposing the sentence, juries often prefer to let criminals go free and find them “not guilty,” and we should understand that as not guilty enough for the punishment that might be given.
-MC
May 2nd, 2008 at 2:49 am
If the rape ends in murder, they should recieve the death penalty. If the rape does not, and the victim turns out physically ok in the end — minus the whole sex thing — castrate them “lol”. It’s time to go old-school in punishment again. Because we went humanitarian on criminals, that’s why our crime rate is the amongst the highest in the world. Third world countries have lower crime rates per person because they keep the old ways.
May 4th, 2008 at 8:47 am
If a jury finds a defendent not guilty on the premise that the sentence is too harsh, then that is a problem with the system, and maybe there is a law (i dont know), or maybe a bill should be passed to allow some sort of an appeal to a higher court by the prosecution for a retrial if there is an evidence of the jury trying to legislate their own penalties and standards. This of course would cost a lot of money, and the jury will have to have it rest on their conscious that their arrogance that they have the power to override laws denied a victim justice.
You’re argument is valid on the basis that rape is less of a crime than murder, but there is no one to tell us which crime is worse between murder or rape. I believe there is no marginal benefit that child rapists get out of murdering a child, except, as you mentioned, to eliminate evidence. So that would give them an incentive to murder the child as well, but if someone would go as far as to rape a child, then any set of penalties would not deter them at all. Now this rests on the assumption that:
Child rapists are not restricted by penalties. The only way they restrict their behavior is to benefit from their restriction later, not to avoid being punished so harshly. Punishment is not an issue to them.
I believe the death penalty policies should not be set on the basis that it is a deterrent. It should be used as punishment for the criminal and as justice for the victim, and should it act as a deterrent, which I don’t think it would for child rapists or murderers, then that’s just an additional cost or benefit of having it.
May 4th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
David,
My arguement is not based on rape being less of a crime than murder, but rather that you cannot add anything to a death penalty to make it worse. The MARGINAL cost of another crime, after the first one that would bring about the death of the criminal, is zero. That means that a death sentence for the first crime, by reducing the penalty on the second crime ENCOURAGES chid rapiests to go ahead and kill their victims.
We should think hard about penalties just as retribution. What incentives do our penalties give criminals? Do we want to encourage certain crimes by reducing their deterrent effects? I know I would not want my child, who could become a victim of such a sicko, to also be killed on top of it just for retribution’s sake.
The article I cite in the Southern Economic Journal suggests that murderers do respond to deterrents. There is plenty of empirical evidence that crazy people do respond to extra penalties for extra (and bad) behavior. Yes, these criminals are sick, but that does not mean that they do not respond to deterrents. The empirical evidence about sickos responding to deterrents is on my side.
Your assumption that child rapists do not consider penalties is incorrect. That is why they seek to hide their actions, and why they are more than willing to kill victims if they think that the victims might tie them to their crime.
You are just incorrect to think that no penalty will deter a child rapist.
Remember, not all child rapists kill their victims, just as not all of them let their victims live. To some, the gain of killing their victim is not worth the cost, when the extra penalty is a real possibility. For these, raising the penalty on child rape may reduce some child rapes, but it will also raise the rape and murders. The question of which effect is stronger and which is a better outcome is an empirical matter (to be studied with statistical methods).
MC