Is support for the death penalty symbolic?
Authors: Tom Tyler and Renee Weber
Goal: This study revolves around analyzing the instrumental and symbolic supporting perspectives surrounding the death penalty. This is important because there seems to be two schools of thought with regards to the debate over the death penalty in contemporary America – either that it deters crime, or it is the morally correct thing to do (Lex Talionis (an eye for an eye)).
Background Information: The Instrumental Response Hypothesis revolves suggests that support for the legalization and implementation/utilization of the death penalty is due to the urge and desire to deter future crime. This hypothesis goes on to say that those individuals who think that crime is bad and are advocates of formal (government) intervention are more likely to support the death penalty because the threat of losing one’s life for crimes committed should deter anyone from committing these heinous crimes. The Pragmatic theory of punitiveness (punishment) revolves around how increased victimization and fear of crime furthers the adoption of harsher punishments (i.e., the death penalty). On the other hand, the symbolic perspective that is evaluated incorporates perspectives such as authoritarianism, dogmatism, and conservativism to encompass symbolic support for the adoption of the death penalty.
Research Methodology: This study utilized phone interviews conducted with 200 residents of Evanston, Illinois in 1980. In the first round of calls, a systematic random sample was derived from a list of publicly available phone numbers. Troldahl and Carter random sampling was utilized for the second round of calls. In sum, 66 percent of phone calls yielded completed survey responses. Four types of independent variable were assessed: past experiences with crime, current and future fears and concerns about crime, general political and social attitudes, and demographic characteristics.
Findings: When these two different perspectives (i.e., the instrumental/pragmatic response and the symbolic response) were evaluated together utilizing adapted analytic techniques compared to prior studies at this time period, the results indicated that the symbolic perspective was found to exercise the major influence of the two for support of the death penalty, while the influence of the instrumental/pragmatic approach was small/minimal. These results suggest that the death penalty support is one of general political ideology, rather than being supported on substantial and corroborated scientific reasoning.
What does it mean?: In essence, this article further supports what was discussed within the last few weeks regarding the lack of consistent support for the death penalty’s deterrence properties. This article goes further to apply the symbolic support of the death penalty (based on political idologies and preconceived notions) to the argument and root said argument in theory. This articles provides more support to the claim that those that support the death penalty do so because of things like tradition, generational turnover, and political ideologies, rather than basing decisions on firm principles rooted in scientific research. And while these individuals are well within their rights to have these opinions, shouldn’t their thoughts be slightly more scrutinized when it comes to putting individuals to death, no matter how heinous the crimes they have committed? Week by week we examine more and more articles that have been published by top criminological and legal scholars that provide consistent support in opposition of the death penalty, and this article continues this tradition. When taken into account with the other articles that we have reviewed, we have learned that the death penalty is not only inadequate with regards to its ability to deter future crime, rooted in the political landscape of the jurisdiction, but now that it is more strongly associated with symbolism, rather than instrumental support.
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