Chapter 7 Learning Objectives

  • Understand the assumptions of deterrence theory and differentiate between specific and general deterrence
  • Identify Cesare Beccaria’s three elements of deterrence
  • Know how the deterrence argument has been used in the Supreme Court’s landmark death penalty cases
  • Know and understand why economists, sociologists and criminologists come to different conclusions regarding the death penalty
  • Understand the brutalization effect
  • Understand Pascal’s wager as applied to the death penalty and why it may be irrelevant to some
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