s citizens to rely on legal processes rather than self-help to vindicate their wrongs is an essential function of society, and can be factored into the decision-making process regarding punishment. That deterrence could not be statistically assessed did not make it less important a goal.In The Death Penalty Debate, Ernest Van Den Haag agrees with the Supreme Court in the Gregg case: Deterrence is an important goal in considering capital punishment. Van Den Haag tries to draw an analogy between deterrence and scientific endeavors in order to substantiate that statistical proof is not always necessary - just because it cannot be proven does not make it so. He indicates empirical evidence is available to determine that the death penalty is more of a deterrent than life imprisonment. Unfortunately, he tends towards gross generalization instead, such as a harsher penalty is always a greater deterrent than milder ones.Van Den Haag reasons that the elimination of one murderer by capital punishment will decrease the potential homicide rate. He also ascribes a higher importance to the safety of potential victims to that of rights of convicted murderers when he indicates that the remote possibility that the death penalty would deter a few men from committing murder makes the process a worthy one. In this light, according to Van Den Haag, no other threat can deter certain crimes, ones which are special because of their very nature - war crimes, international spies, and murders which occur in prison.For the most part, these points rely on a different version of dignity than either of the Supreme Court cases. To varying degrees, both Supreme Court cases attempted to maintain the principle that a convicted mans dignity be preserved to the greatest extent when punishment is decided. According to Van Den Haag, to indicate that the death penalty is unjust because it is inconsistent with human dignity lessens the horror of murder as a crime; the...
