olding states, and there it has been used almost exclusively against killers of whites, not blacks, and never against white killers of blacks" (Greenberg 3). It is not to say that this is planned, but it seems to be the way that the system has worked out. " The minuscule number of executions nowadays cannot achieve the grand moral aims that are presupposed by a serious societal commitment to retribution" (Greenberg 6). The consistency of the death penalty is a problem, especially when it comes to attempting to show proof of the deterrent effect of capital punishment.
             It is a difficult subject to tackle when trying to figure out if the capital punishment sentence is a valid form of deterrence. Some people argue that deterrence is a natural effect of being threatened with the death penalty. "There is a one percent increase in convictions of murderers results in about 105 fewer murders" (1972 1). However, this is tough to accept when it is not possible to know how many murders were prevented. The only way to look at the deterrent effect is by studying statistical evidence.
             After much research it is still hard to find a correlation between the punishment of the death penalty and the rate of deaths during a certain period. "Many things affect homicide rates; the problem is to separate the impact, if any, of capital punishment from that of al the other variables (Lamperti 3). The way to see the effect of the death penalty then and use it to support the position that capital punishment is an effective deterrent is to see if there are lower homicide rates in states that continue to sentence people to the death penalty. Another way examine the effect of is to look at the rates in states that had capital punishment
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