The heavy price of death under the threat of capital punishment does not weigh on the minds of these criminals at the time of the crime and thus does not deter them. In addition to the lack of deterrent against unpremeditated crime, the death penalty similarly cannot deter premeditated crime. A premeditated murder seeks to carry out their malicious act undetected, the threat of death does not deter the criminals who expects to escape arrest. Statistics have shown that the threat of death does not deter crime – in some cases it even provokes it. John Lamperti, Professor of Mathematics at Dartmouth College, explains incidents of "attempted suicide by homicide" where one "kills in order to court death by execution" (7). This unintended effect encapsulates the detrimental nature of the death penalty. Rather than deter crime, the introduction of the death penalty has induced crime. Death begets death. The public of the United States, the citizens whose safety the death penalty is supposed to protect, also reach the consensus that the death penalty is ineffective. .
The public of the United States does not believe in the death penalty as an effective deterrent. Supporters of the death penalty relied on the intuition that the threat of execution will deter a criminal before the act of murder, however most Americans have changed their views since Koch's time as mayor. These findings are backed by the public as the proportion of respondents to a Gallup Poll who stated that the death penalty was not a deterrent doubled from the original polling of 31% in 1985 to 62% in 2004 (Radelet and LaCock 492). In addition, a 1995 national survey found that 2/3 of nearly 400 police chiefs and county sheriffs did not believe that the death penalty served as a significant deterrent to murder (Radelet and LaCock 492). The necessity of the death penalty in order for a functioning society can only be seen in the light of its use as a deterrent.
