Australia and Capital Punishment

March 19, 2010
Posted by Jay Livingston

Australia killed the death penalty. Nobody had been executed in Australia since 1967, but a bill passed last week banned it permanently for all states and territories. It banned torture as well.
(A news story is here.)

In the US, the death penalty debate, when it does get to empirical questions, usually focuses on whether the death penalty has any impact on crime. The effect is probably stronger the other way round. Crime rates push the death penalty. In the US, crime rates began to climb steadily beginning in the early 1960s. Support for the death penalty started increasing about two years later. Crime rates started to decrease about 1991 and continued to fall dramatically. Starting in 1993, support for the death penalty declined from 80% to 65%.

Australia too has seen a decrease in murder.

(Click on the graph for a larger view.)

For some reason the chief government publication gives numbers not rates. Had it used rates, the drop would be somewhat more pronounced since the population during the period increased from about 17 million to about 21 million.

Other crimes have decreased as well.


At the risk of having the gunslingers descend again, I will mention that at one point during this period, Australia passed a stringent gun control law, chiefly in response to a mass shooting, the Port Arthur Massacre. Assault weapons were banned, the government bought back and then destroyed 650,000 guns, and stricter licensing and registration were required. If you don’t know when this happened, look at the graphs and see if you can guess which year.

(For the answer, and much more information on Australia’s gun laws, go here.)