There are plenty of reasons that the death penalty should be outlawed. Cost, wrongful convictions and executions of innocent people, and the suffering of the accused are the main reasons (EJUSA, n.d.). To begin, most people do not realize that carrying out one death penalty costs roughly 20 times more than keeping that same criminal in prison for their life. The reason it is so expensive is because of the pre-trial and trial costs, endless appeals, and the basic cost of being incarcerated. In California, 1.9 billion dollars were spent just on death penalty trials since 1978.
One of the major problems many have with capital punishment is the cost. Death penalty trials are very complicated with many important parts, and as a result the death penalty is extremely expensive. Studies have shown that a “death-penalty trial costs $1 million more than one in which prosecutors seek life without parole (Barnes 1 of 2).” Duke University studied North Carolina’s death penalty and found that the state spent more, $2.1 million dollars more, on a death penalty case than a case seeking a life sentence (Barnes 1 of 2). Between 1995 and 2004, New York spent over $170 million dollars without executing a single prisoner (Costs 3 of 5). Death row prisoners are deemed dangerous to society and other prisoners, and so they are classified as maximum custody.
In the maximum-security prisons. So actually $75,000/year for 50 years at 2% increase is well, I can’t figure it out but I’ll bet it’s a lot of money. So what it boils down to is, we have these thousands of people on death row that have murdered and rapped people, and where paying on average $34,000/year to hold them. Why are we spending money on people that have done such horrible things. Do unto others, as you want them to do unto you.
DEATH PENALTY VS LIFE IMPROSONMENT INTRODUCTION Capital punishment or death penalty is the legal process by which the state punishes an offender for a heinous crime by execution. The law dates back to the 1700s BC but has evolved over time and has faced several criticisms. The rationale lies in phenomenon that certain crimes, for example murder are so heinous that the damages cannot be financially paid and only retribution or taking away the right to live could compensate them. The law also has grounds based on the deterrence perspective and has economic and social efficiency arguments attached. On the flip side, there are arguments based on humanity regarding death penalty being a rather cruel punishment and some based on an economic standpoint as well.
There are tens of thousands of homicides in this country every year, and only a tiny fraction of these criminals are sentenced to death. What makes a crime so unacceptable that the result is capital punishment? Well it seems that rather than based on the crime, the decision is based on politics, the jurisdiction, and the quality of the legal counsel. “The death penalty is a lethal lottery: of the 22,000 homicides committed every year approximately 100 people or less are sentenced to death” (working for an alternative to the death penalty). The statistics speak for themselves.
Some people believe that it’s cheaper to kill. The cost of death penalty is greater than the cost of life in prison without parole. Thus, using conservative estimates, the total cost of available alternatives would be to continue spending at least $137.7 million per year to maintain our dysfunctional system, or to adopt a policy of terminal confinement at an annual cost of $11.5 million.
The people who are for the death penalty feel that it gives a chance for individuals to be accused for their wrongful acts. Each year billions of dollars are spent to sentence criminals to death. The death penalty costs $24 million dollars on average per execution (Pudlow). Since the death penalty is so expensive thirteen states have made it illegal to use the death penalty, and thirty seven states still have the death penalty. The US military and the US federal government still have the death penalty so thirty nine jurisdictions in all still uphold the death penalty to this day.
That is about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years.” This is one detail that those opposing death penalty implement in their argument to abolish said act. Another factor is time invested in these cases. Most death penalty cases range from 6 to 10 years, factoring death row and other complications. Thus, the more time invested in determining guilt or innocence, the more money of taxpayers are being consumed. However, as depleting as it is, there is a good reason for.
The State of Texas has been allowing convicted criminals to serve less than fifty percent of their sentence because the state simply can’t afford to keep them behind bars any longer. These same states are sinking millions of dollars into the death penalty every year. It has been shown in many cases that the cost of a death penalty case is much greater than that of a life without parole case. One such case comes out of a study that was done in Colorado that concluded that capital proceedings on average require one hundred and twenty three more days than a life without parole case. (Marceau, 2013) This case also noted that it takes about two days to select a jury for a life without parole case while it takes about 30 days to select a jury for a capital case.
One answer is that the number of people on death row has increased, as states and the federal government have expanded the number of crimes punishable by death. As the net is cast wider, innocent people — many poor and poorly defended — inevitably become caught. Second, opportunities to correct mistakes in court have been sharply curtailed. By imposing limits on death sentence appeals, the states and the federal government have effectively shortened the time between conviction and execution. While the average time between sentencing and execution is around eight years — and getting shorter — for many, it takes much longer to establish their innocence and win release from death row.