‘Killer Show’ On TV Might Reduce Killings
As if television werent violent enough, here’s one possible way to reduce the murder rate: Broadcast executions in prime time.
At least that’s what criminologist Steven Stack says is one of the implications of his discovery that homicides dropped in the days following widely publicized executions during the 1970s and 1980s.
The decline in killings was small but significant and appeared to occur among white victims but not among blacks, Stack reported in a recent issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior.
Stack found that, on average, about three fewer whites were murdered on the third day following a publicized execution, which he defined as one reported on at least two of the three major television networks. (He found the impact of a high-profile execution was greatest on the third day, then the rate appeared to return to normal.)
But the homicide rate for blacks was unaffected by publicized executions, said Stack, who teaches at Wayne State University. Likewise, executions that were not widely publicized had no measurable affect on murders of blacks or whites.
Why the difference by race? Here things get a bit thick, Stack acknowledges. He speculates that a disproportionately large number of African Americans are less affected by publicized executions because they are more likely than whites to endure extreme “homicideproducing conditions, such as poverty, family disruption and the subculture of violence.”
These risk factors “act as a barrier against a decline in homicide.” Since people tend to kill people of their own race, the result may be that “homicide-producing life circumstances of African Americans may be offsetting the messages of deterrence, victim mobilization” and other social warnings “found in the stories about the executions,” he wrote.
At least that’s the theory. Stack said more studies are needed. If his results are confirmed, he said states might seek to maximize coverage of executions in an effort to reduce homicides, at least among whites.
Some states aren’t waiting for more data. Broadcasting executions isn’t a new idea, and efforts are already underway in California and elsewhere to televise killers being gassed, fried or drugged to death in an attempt to scare would-be killers straight.
Mind vs. the barbell
Sometimes not knowing how tough it is makes a tough job easier. And if youre an Olympic-class weightlifter, ignorance may be blissfully golden, reports psychologist Michael J. Mahoney of the University of North Texas.
Mahoney conducted experiments with 24 nationally ranked American weightlifters, testing each one twice to see how much weight they could lift.
During one test, the athletes were informed exactly how much iron they were attempting to pump before they tried a lift. During the other test, lifters weren’t told exactly how much weight was on the bar.
“Most athletes lifted more weight when they were unaware of the magnitude of the challenge,” he reports in the upcoming International Journal of Sport Psychology. “Without their awareness, five athletes lifted more weight than ever before in their lives, increasing their best performances by as much as 33 pounds.”
For the very best of his brawny subjects, Mahoneys test had even greater implications. He found the differences in their performance suggested that the only thing keeping them from a world record or an Olympic gold medal may be their minds, not their muscles.