#  More on statistics and the death penalty 

 





November 19, 2007

 

 

There was a good [non-technical article](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/us/18deter.html) by Adam Liptak in the [New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com) this weekend reviewing the renewed debate about the supposed deterrent effect of capital punishment (The web version of the article linked to seven different academic articles; many thanks to the editorial staff). I've blogged about this before ([here](http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/archives/2007/06/statistics_and_3.shtml)) and tend to agree with those who say that there just isn't enough information in the data. In that context, I particularly liked the quote from Justin Wolfers at the end of the article:

> Professor Wolfers said the answer to the question of whether the death penalty deterred was “not unknowable in the abstract,” given enough data.“If I was allowed 1,000 executions and 1,000 exonerations, and I was allowed to do it in a random, focused way,” he said, “I could probably give you an answer.”

  
  
Personally, I'd rather randomly allocate 1,000 electoral systems than 1,000 executions, but the point is well-taken.Posted by [Mike Kellermann](http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/archives/author/mike-kellermann/) at [ 8:20 AM](http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/archives/2007/11/more_on_statist.shtml)



 

 

 



 

 

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