4) Deterrence. The death penalty doesn’t have a deterrent factor and doesn’t decrease crime. States with the death penalty do not have lower homicide rates. Many criminals don’t get caught, most criminals don’t receive the death penalty, and those who do are typically on death row for a long time, often at least a decade and sometimes more, so would-be criminals don’t typically make a connection between their crime and capital punishment. We cannot conclude that the death penalty has any deterrent effect on crime, including murder.