Murder and Capital-Punishment in the Evolving Context of the Post-Furman Era

In view of (1) escalating national attention, and political and judicial activity centering on capital punishment during the past decade and a half, and (2) concomitant changes in homicides this paper investigates the impact of the death penalty on state homicide rates for the post-Furman period, 1973 -84 The research also addresses the debate over the relative merits of the contiguous state matching strategy versus multiple regression as a means of controlling for the influence of possible confounding factors in examining the capital punishment/homicide relationship. The two approaches yield quite similar results. Consistent with a long line of deterrence research, the analysis produces no indication that our national return to capital punishment since Furman has had a systematic downward impact on homicide.