Police Say Death Penalty Isn’t A Deterrent

The death penalty and gun control dominate the political debate about how to stop violent crime, but the nation’s police chiefs say neither is a particularly effective tool.

In a poll released Thursday, expanding use of the death penalty ranked last when law officers were asked to choose among seven methods for reducing street violence.

While Republican crime-fighters on Capitol Hill have focused on applying the death penalty to more crimes and limiting Death Row appeals, only 1 percent of law officers surveyed said they would choose the death penalty as the primary focus of a campaign to make their streets safer. This is true even though nine-tenths of them support the death penalty philosophically.

But the chiefs didn’t much like the Democratic alternative, either.

The Democrats have plowed a lot of political capital into gun control, and President Clinton has vowed to veto any effort to weaken the Brady law, which requires a waiting period before handgun purchases, or the ban on assault weapons passed last year. But just 3 percent of police chiefs surveyed said getting guns off the street was the primary method they would choose to combat violent crime.

What would work, according to the cops? The most popular choice was reducing drug abuse, cited by 31 percent of law officers surveyed. It was followed by improving the economy and increasing jobs, cited by 17 percent.

The poll was conducted last month for the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based organization that argues against capital punishment. It surveyed 386 police chiefs and county sheriffs across the nation, most of whom have served as law officers for more than 20 years.