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Executions, Deterrence and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities

By David T. Johnson / Jeffrey Fagan / Franklin Zimring / Columbia School of Law, on 1 January 2009


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We compare homicide rates in two quite similar cities with vastly different execution risks. Singapore had an execution rate close to 1 per million per year until an explosive twentyfold increase in 1994-95 and 1996-97 to a level that we show was probably the highest in the world. Hong Kong,has no executions all during the last generation and abolished capital punishment in 1993. Homicide levels and trends are remarkably similar in these two cities over the 35 years after 1973. By comparing two closely matched places with huge contrasts in actual execution but no differences in homicide trends, we have generated a unique test of the exuberant claims of deterrence that have been produced over the past decade in the U.S.

  • Document type Article
  • Countries list China
  • Themes list Deterrence ,



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