Self-Execution,Capital Punishment,and the Economics of Murder: Analysis of U.K.Statistics Suggests that Suicide by Murder Suspects is Not Influenced by the Probability of Execution

During the period when capital punishment was regularly used in England and Wales, the risk of self-execution from suicide, when suspected of murder, greatly dominated the risk of death at the hands of the state. Over the period 1900–1949, even with four years' data missing, there were 1,540 suicides by those suspected of murder. Using econometric analysis it is found that there is no significant relationship between self-execution and state execution.