Death Penalty: Deterrence or Aggravation?
Why capital punishment fails to deter serious crimes
Traditional criminal justice systems have long viewed the capital punishment as the strongest possible deterrent. Their logic seems simple: if the punishment is severe enough, no one will dare to commit the crime.
But what if this logic rests on a flawed assumption? It assumes that committing a crime is a single, instantaneous act, a zero or one decision. Is that really so?
Nevertheless, we all know that committing a serious crime is a process. It unfolds over time through stages, and at each stage, the criminal faces choices.
If we want to understand deterrence, we should examine this process and discover the truth. The death penalty is a deterrent, but only for those who already lack the inclination, capability, or circumstances to commit serious crimes in the first place.
In other words, the death penalty is a deterrent only for those who have not yet been tainted by the commission of a serious crime. It fails to deter those who actually commit such crimes because it transforms a bad situation into an existential one, where the only rational response is escalation rather than surrender.
Crime as a Process, Not an Event
Most legal systems treat crime as a binary act. Either one committed the crime or not; they are either guilty or innocent. This binary thinking shapes the approach to punishment. These systems design penalties that fit the final act, not the journey that led to it.
The reality is different. A person who commits a serious crime does not simply wake up one morning and decide to commit a severe crime. They enter a process. They may make a series of small decisions that escalate over time.
Each decision narrows their options and increases the cost of turning back. By the time the crime is completed, the criminal has traveled a long road, and the punishment they face should reflect that journey, not just the final result.
The Theory of Cornered Rational Choice
To understand why the death penalty is ineffective where it should be most powerful, we need a framework that explains how a rational actor makes decisions under extreme pressure.
My framework, the Theory of Cornered Rational Choice, offers such an explanation. It is built on two concepts: the compelled option and the cornered option.
A compelled option is a choice that a rational person makes not because they favor it, but because declining resources, whether income, freedom, or alternatives, limit their choices. If their situation were better, they would not choose that option.
A cornered option is a compelled option that has no accessible alternative. In this case, rising costs or pressures lead to a greater tendency toward the option, not less. Increasing pressure reduces the person’s options and blocks access to exits.
When a rational actor is cornered, pressure backfires. This is rational behavior under extreme constraint, not irrationality. I developed this framework by combining Gary Becker’s economic approach to human behavior with Giffen good theory.
The Criminal Process as a Compelled Option
Before a person starts to commit a crime, they are in a normal situation. They have options. They can choose to walk away. At this stage, the more severe the punishment, the better the deterrent.
But once they begin the process of committing a crime, their situation changes. They have invested their innocence and reputation and have contaminated themselves with a crime. They have crossed a line. They are now in a compelled situation.
At this stage, the severity of the punishment matters enormously. If the punishment is light, the criminal may still choose to stop. They may call for help, confess, or cooperate with authorities. The compelled situation does not become a trap.
However, if the punishment is severe, such as the death penalty, the criminal’s situation changes again. They are no longer merely compelled. They are cornered.
Get Mojtaba Mohkam’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The death penalty puts the criminal in a terrible dilemma. If they stop the process, they may still face execution. If they continue, they may also face execution.
Either way, the outcome is the same. In this cornered state, the rational choice is to continue. The criminal has nothing to lose by escalating. They may as well try to escape, hide, or fight. The death penalty does not deter them from committing the crime; it deters them from stopping the process.
This is the fatal flaw of the death penalty. It is designed to deter the final act, but it fails to deter the process. By making the cost of stopping infinite, it ensures that the criminal will go all the way.
The Death Penalty as an Existential Threat
The capital punishment is different from other punishments. It is not simply the cost of committing a crime; it is the end of existence. It is an existential threat.
When individuals feel that they have been infected with a crime punishable by death, their decision-making changes fundamentally because they are faced with an existential threat.
In this scenario, the criminal no longer has any exit ramp. They are cornered, so the logical response is to escalate the crime’s commitment.
This is why the death penalty is not a deterrent in such circumstances. It creates a situation in which the criminal has no access to any options but to go through with the crime to the end.
The Escalation of Commitment Trap
The capital punishment traps the criminal in a pattern of escalating commitment. This is a well-known phenomenon in decision-making: a person continues to invest in a failing course of action because they have already invested too much to quit.
Imagine a person who gets into a fight. During the struggle, their opponent falls to the ground and becomes unconscious. At this moment, the person faces a choice.
If the death penalty is the punishment for murder, the person will not call an ambulance. They will not try to save their opponent’s life. Why? Because if the opponent dies, they will be executed for murder. But calling for help means admitting involvement and risking the death penalty.
Furthermore, in such circumstances, a perpetrator may kill witnesses in addition to the intended victim to completely erase the traces of the crime and save themselves from the death penalty.
The death penalty does not encourage the criminal to save a life; it encourages them to walk away without leaving any traces. It locks them into a pattern of escalation where each decision makes the next one more costly to reverse.
Even after the crime is committed, the death penalty continues to distort behavior. During the investigation, the criminal has an incentive to mislead the police, destroy evidence, or frame others. They will not cooperate, and they will not confess.
The death penalty does not encourage remorse. It encourages a deeper commitment to the crime. It transforms a person who might have stopped into a person who cannot stop.
Conclusion
The capital punishment is not a deterrent for those who have been tainted by serious crimes. It transforms a compelled situation into a cornered one.
It turns punishment into an existential threat. It locks the criminal into a pattern of escalation where they feel they cannot stop.
Committing a severe crime is a process, not an event. Punishment should reflect that process. It should create deterrence by building an exit ramp at each stage.
Indeed, it should offer an exit, not a corner. Logic, not just emotion, tells us that when someone is cornered, they do not surrender; they fight to the death.
