Interestingly enough, there doesn’t seem to be correlation between having death penalty in law and lower crime rate. Many countries without death penalty or with death penalty only “on paper” have lower (serious) crime rates than those with death penalty in their jurisdical system. It could also be said that death penalty leads to heavier crimes since once criminal realizes that he crossed that line, it no longer matter how heavier crime gets but hope of getting out over the death bodies becomes the variant too.