Public execution seems hardly necessary for people to know the consequences, even if you think the death penalty is required. They know it anyway.
From another perspective, assuming attending a mass execution is not compulsory, what audience will choose to watch? People looking to receive a better understanding of what would await them if they comittied crime, or people excited to see violent death or vengeance? No one is voluntarily choosing to watch an execution while thinking “that could be me”, they are thinking “yeah, I’m here to see that evil dude get what he deserves”, in the most “favorable” scenario, some people are there just for pure bloodlust. Either way if these people find themselves in a serious chance to commit murder, it’s guaranteed that either they just revel in the violent death and don’t care about the morality, or they think their victim deserves it (can be as weak as the killer thinks he deserves a relationship, and the victim didn’t want one).
If we look at the data, per your belief we should see the handful of public execution countries enjoying a very low murder rate. They actually do not. In fact most countries without a death penalty at all consistently have lower murder rates than the countries with public executions.
Public execution seems hardly necessary for people to know the consequences, even if you think the death penalty is required. They know it anyway.
From another perspective, assuming attending a mass execution is not compulsory, what audience will choose to watch? People looking to receive a better understanding of what would await them if they comittied crime, or people excited to see violent death or vengeance? No one is voluntarily choosing to watch an execution while thinking “that could be me”, they are thinking “yeah, I’m here to see that evil dude get what he deserves”, in the most “favorable” scenario, some people are there just for pure bloodlust. Either way if these people find themselves in a serious chance to commit murder, it’s guaranteed that either they just revel in the violent death and don’t care about the morality, or they think their victim deserves it (can be as weak as the killer thinks he deserves a relationship, and the victim didn’t want one).
If we look at the data, per your belief we should see the handful of public execution countries enjoying a very low murder rate. They actually do not. In fact most countries without a death penalty at all consistently have lower murder rates than the countries with public executions.