Predictable Justice Systems: Community Desensitization of Violence and Capital Punishment Rates

Defining statutes for capital punishment crimes vary by state. Within states the distribution of capital sentences and number of executions vary greatly by county. Academics believe capital punishment to be arbitrary in nature. Previous literature has looked at the internal nature of individual sentences such as race of victim, race of convict, and severity of the homicide. Rather than looking at the characterizations of homicides that result in a capital sentence, examining the demographics and communities of the sentencing counties could explain the variation of sentences within a state. Specifically, counties with high exposure to institutionally mandated killing could be more inclined to issue capital punishment sentences than counties with a low tolerance for institutional violence. This research will use veteran populations as a proxy variable for a county’s desensitization level. Findings include significant predictive power of Vietnam and Gulf War veteran populations, and in some cases significant predictive power of overall veteran population. The magnitude and sign of Veteran coefficients indicate that different groups influence community judicial systems in opposing manners