First, the death penalty is not the best protection from a murderer. In other words, it doesn't serve as a deterrent to criminal behavior as people used to think. Scientific studies of deterrent effect of the death penalty have been conducted for several years, with varying results. Most of these studies have failed to produce evidence that it deterred murders more effectively than the threat of imprisonment. There are 38 states in the US that have the death penalty as the punishment while the other 12 do not. When comparisons are made between states with the death penalty and states without, the majority of death penalty states show murder rates consistently higher than non-death penalty states ( from 48% to 101%). The average murder rate among 100,000 population in 1999 of death penalty states was 5.5 while the rate of non-death penalty states was only 3.6. The Times reports that 10 of the 12 states without the death penalty have homicide rates below the national average. "I think Michigan made a wise decision 150 years ago," said the state's governor, John Engler, a Republican, referring to the state's abolition of the death penalty in 1846. "We're pretty proud of the fact that we

don’t have the death penalty." In fact, states without the death penalty have better record on homicide rates. Another evidence that also prove the ineffectiveness of the death penalty is the comparisons of the rate of death by handguns in eight industrialized countries. The United States stands out with a rate of death much higher than the rate of other countries, 35 over one million people were killed with handguns in 1996, while there were only 0.5 in Britain. The United States is also the only country of the eight to retain use of the death penalty. These evidences prove that murders are fearless of death penalty and most of them either do not expect to be caught or do not weigh the differences between a possible execution and life in prison before they act. Some murders premeditate their crimes and find way to escape from detection, arrest, and conviction; they never think of being arrested. Another reason is that most crimes are committed in the heat of the moment, it means during the moment of great emotional stress, anger, or under the influence of stimulants. General Jim Mattox, a former Texas Attorney who presided over many of Texas's executions, remarked, " It is my own experience that those executed in Texas were not deterred by the existence of the death penalty law. I think in most cases you'll find the murder was committed under severe drug and alcohol abuse." So, crimes are also caused by impulsive act, when logical thinking has been suspended. The death penalty does not show its positive effect, moreover, it may be an incitement to criminal violence. A 1995 Hart Research Associates Poll of police chiefs in the US found that the majority of police chiefs do not belief the death penalty significantly reduces the number of homicides. Actually, they ranked the death pen

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