Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

This site is currently in beta, and your feedback is helping shape its ongoing development.

Return to search results

Re-examination of the Criminal Deterrent Effects of Capital Punishment in the United States, 1978-1998

Published by National Institute of Justice | Department of Justice | Metadata Last Checked: November 14, 2025 | Last Modified: 2008-01-31T00:00:00
The purpose of this study was to estimate the deterrent effect of capital punishment by employing a methodology that accounted for model uncertainty by integrating various studies into a single coherent analysis. First, this study replicated the results from two previous studies, Dezhbakhsh, Rubin and Shepherd (2003) and Donohue and Wolfers (2005), that draw on the same data. Second, the researchers implemented model averaging methods using standard frequentist estimators to take a weighted average of the findings across all possible models that could explain the effect of the difference in crime rates under alternate laws. Each model's effect was weighted based on its ability to explain the data. Variables used in this study included deterrence variables as well as various demographic and economic control variables.

Resources

1 resource available

  • Re-examination of the Criminal Deterrent Effects of Capital Punishment in the United States, 1978-1998

    FILE

Find Related Datasets

Click any tag below to search for similar datasets

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov