While no evidence supports the popular notion that ceremonial killing is a deterrent, there is evidence that the enactment of capital punishment contributes to increases in the murder rate among the general population. In the Western world, it has a brutalizing effect, particularly in the United States and specifically in the South. One example is the macabre parties held outside Virginia's death chamber since ceremonial killings were resumed in 1982. Arguments against the death sentence based on the risk of putting innocent parties to death are rarely heard, although the risk probably is greater due to the number of things that can go wrong and the number of literal guesses that have to be made during the course of a judicial proceeding for murder. In the context of current research on violence, the death sentence makes society more dangerous by setting an official example in the use of the most extreme form of violence as a cure for violence. Tables and 16 references.