The belief, shared by many, in the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent and in its uniqueness as a means of dissuasion can usually be traced to a lack of knowledge as to the penalty's applications, to an inadequate understanding of the nature of criminal homicide, the psychology of the killer, and to a failure to realize that deterrence has its limits.

In his study of the death penalty in Canada, Topping made the following statement:

"It seems clear that there is an inverse relationship between severity of punishment and certainty of punishment, and that Canadians are suffering under a delusion when they assert that they know how to hang. The net result of the administration of justice in Canada as it relates to capital offences is that murder has become the least risky of any or all the offences which a citizen might choose to commit".⁴³

In an attempt to assess the level of certainty of the death penalty in Canada and the odds against incurring it, I compiled statistics for the 80-year period from 1881 to 1960.¹⁶ The 80 years were then divided into periods of five years each. The highest percentage of death sentences to charges (45.9%) was recorded in the period from 1931 to 1935 when a person charged with murder had approximately an even chance of being sentenced to death. The last period, 1956 to 1960, revealed a low percentage of death sentences (33%), the highest percentage of commutations (73%) and the lowest percentage of executions (23.8%). In other words, during that period, although capital punishment was still the mandatory penalty for murder, a person charged with murder had only one chance in three of being sentenced to death. Once sentenced to death, he had more than three chances out of four of escaping the death penalty. The chances of being executed during that period for a person accused with the capital offence of murder were eight in a hundred, a very low probability indeed. If the period is examined as a whole, we find that out of a total of 3,249 persons charged with murder, only 634 were actually executed. The percentage of executions to charges was 19.5 meaning that only one charge in five led to an execution, again a very weak probability.

Those who feel that the death penalty, despite the very low probability of incurring it, still provides an effective means of societal protection simply forget that the other risks the potential killer takes are far greater than the risk of legal execution. Comparisons between the rates of legal executions and the rates of offenders killed by the police, the intended victim, or by some bystander during or after the crime, show that this latter risk is much higher than the former. If the potential killer is not deterred by the greater threat of being killed on the spot while committing his crime or while escaping could it be claimed that he would be deterred by the minor and remote threat of being legally executed? The fact is, the potential killer rarely contemplates the consequences of his acts, calculates the risk involved, or makes a rational consideration of gain or loss.

To illustrate the differential risks to which the potential killer is exposed, Sellin³⁴,³⁵ made the following calculations:

"During the period 1934-1954, in Chicago, for instance, policemen killed 69 and private citizens 261 criminals or suspects involved in homicide, or a total of 330. During the same period there were 45 persons executed for murder in the Cook County jail. In other words, there were nearly 8 times as many homicidal offenders killed unofficially, so to speak, as were those electrocuted. There were 5,132 murders and non-negligent manslaughters known to the police during those years. In connection with 6.45% of these homicides, a criminal or suspect met his death at the hands of police or citizens, while 0.88% were put to death in the electric chair".