Homicide and Death Penalty: A Cross-Sectional Time Series Analysis

Studies of the effect of the death penalty are typically either (1) cross-sectional studies, comparing murder rates across abolitionist and retentionist political units, or (2) longitudinal studies, comparing murder rates across different periods within the same polity. Each of these methods has its own faults and none yielded consistent, clear-cut results. The present study is based upon pooled time-series analysis of data from 17 countries for the period 1955–1972. The analysis shows that the death penalty has a very low, inconsistent effect upon both homicide and murder rates. These results do not change the general picture of inconsistent findings in this area.