Another huge cost is the appeals process. There are three different appeal processes that a death row inmate can take, and they usually use them all up with costs money. These appeals can take months or even years and while the appeals are taking place, the legal representation is still getting paid by tax dollars.
A report from the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice stated that, “The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without 69 possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate.94 With California’s current death row population of 670, that accounts for $63.3 million annually. Reducing the
The three strikes laws is a legal system that many states have adapted that specifies if one commits three felonies then they automatically receive a life sentence (Cite 19). While they vary from state to state, currently 28 states have the three strikes law in place. The problem is the three felonies do not have to be violent. For instance, someone who may have stolen a felony amount of goods, forged government paperwork, and got caught with a large amount of drugs could be facing life in prison for their three separate felonies (“Three Strikes”). While this law was created to keep people who really deserve to spend their life in prison locked up, it often affects other non-violent criminals who have made some bad decisions. The statistics are staggering as well. Currently out of all the people who are in incardinated under the three strikes law, less than half are in for violent crimes (“Three Strikes”). America needs to seriously reevaluate their three strikes law. It does not necessarily have to be taken completely off the law book, as it is does have it place for some offenders. Yet it needs to be heavily modified in order to have the ability to free up more cells for people who really deserve to be
It was intended to punish serious or violent repeat offenders so alternatives would apply to non-violent, petty offenders. The first alternative is rather simple in that the law could allow prosecutors to consider whether a defendant’s “background, character and prospects” placed him or her outside of the “spirit” of three strikes (Bazelon, 2010). This plea for leniency has been used in appeals to prevent minor offenders from life sentences. It could also be used in cases with mitigating circumstances involving the offender such as mental retardation, child abuse, or mental illness (Bazelon, 2010). Norman Williams was a homeless drug addict in 1997 when he was sentenced to life under the law after he stole a floor jack. A few years later his case was reviewed during which it was discovered that Williams grew up with a mom who was a binge drinker who pimped him and his brothers out to men that she knew. As a result of the abuse, Williams became a cocaine addict as an adult living on the streets of Long Beach, California. This information was had not been introduced at trial but after much effort he was released in 2009 (Bazelon,
One of the most controversial laws in the efforts to reduce crime has been the "three-strikes" laws that have been enacted. This law, which is already in twenty-seven states, requires that offenders convicted of three violent crimes be sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole. The law is based on the idea that the majority of felonies are committed by about 6% of hard core criminals and that crime can be eliminated by getting these criminals off the streets. Unfortunately, the law fails to take into account its own flaws and how it is implemented.
Three Strikes You're Out of Law. We have all heard of the newest anti-crime law, the "Three strikes. and you’re out" of the law. It wasn’t easy getting this law from the bill stage.
Additionally, capital punishment is absurdly expensive. In the article, “ Capital Punishment: Deterrent Effects & Capital costs” Jeffery A. Fagan discusses how expensive death penalty cases can be. He
Notwithstanding issues of morality, the death penalty process of California is financially inefficient and ineffective. At the current rate of executions, “it would take 1,600 years to execute everybody on death row.” [The Death of the American Death Penalty, 122] The average delay in implementing a death sentence calculates out to be 25 years, at an added cost of $90,000 per year over normal incarceration. [Guy, 2] This is a “premium that currently totals more than $60 million a year” [Guy, 2]. When you take the added costs of death row incarceration and total them up with the additional costs of prosecution and the handling of the many legal appeals death row inmates are entitled to, the unnecessary amount of spending is significant. We could eliminate “$126 million a year” in additional costs by simply sentencing death row inmates to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. [Guy, 2] Because of the afo...
For a majority of the 20th century, sentencing policies had a minimal effect on social inequality (Western and Pettit 2002). In the early 1970s, this began to change when stricter sentencing policies were enacted (Western and Pettit 2002). Sentencing laws such as determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing, mandatory minimum sentencing, and three-strikes laws were enacted with the purpose of achieving greater consistency, certainty, and severity in sentencing (National Research Council 2014). Numerous inequalities involving race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status have generated an unprecedented rate of incarceration in America, especially among minority populations (Western and Pettit 2010). With numerous social inequalities currently
The driving force behind "three-strikes" legislation in Washington, were politicians wanting to "get tough on crime". The reasoning behind the law was to reduce recidivism and get violent offenders off the street. I think that the legislation was merely a response to public outcry rather than a well thought out strategy to actually reduce crime. Advocates say that after "three-strikes" laws were adopted across the country there was a drastic reduction in crime in general. They also argue that once a person has committed a his second "strike" and knows that he faces a life sentence if convicted again will think twice before committing another crime. These arguments are fallacies. Finally what supporters fail to point out is that these three-strike laws target minorities over whites in a severely disproportionate amount.
Officially known as Habitual offender laws; “Three Strikes” laws have become common place in 29 states(Chern) within the United States and the Federal Court system; these laws have been designed to counter criminal recidivism by incapacitation through the prison system. The idea behind the laws were to maximize the criminal justice systems deterrent and selective incapacitation effect, under this deterrence theory individuals would be dissuaded from committing criminal activity by the threat of state imposed incarceration. Californians voted in the “three strikes” law (proposition 184) on March 7 1994 by a 72% vote with the intention of reducing crime by targeting serious repeat offenders with long term incarceration thereby eliminating the ability to commit another offense.
The majority of prisoners incarcerated in America are non-violent offenders. This is due mainly to mandatory minimum sentencing laws, which is a method of prosecution that gives offenders a set amount of prison time for a crime they commit if it falls under one of these laws, regardless of their individual case analysis. These laws began in the 1980s, when the use of illegal drugs was hitting an all time high (Conyers 379). The United States began enacting legislature that called for minimum sentencing in an effort to combat this “war on drugs.” Many of these laws give long sentences to first time offenders (Conyers). The “three strikes” law states that people convicted of drug crimes on three separate occasions can face life in prison. These laws were passed for political gain, as the American public was swept into the belief that the laws would do nothing other than help end the rampant drug crimes in the country. The laws are still in effect today, and have not succeeded to discourage people from using drugs. Almost fifty percent...
Starting in 1970s, there has been an upward adjustment to sentencing making punishment more punitive and sentencing guidelines more strict. Martinson's (1974) meta-analyzies reviewed over 200 studies and concluded that nothing works in terms of rehabilitating prisoners. Rehabilitating efforts were discontinued. The War on Drugs campaign in 1970s incarcerated thousands of non-violent drug offenders into the system. In 1865, 34.3% of prison population were imprisoned for drug violation. By 1995, the percentage grew to 59.9% (figure 4.1, 104). Legislation policies like the Third Strikes laws of 1994 have further the severity of sentencing. The shift from rehabilitation to human warehouse marks the end of an era of trying to reform individuals and the beginnings of locking inmates without preparation of their release. Along with the reform in the 1970s, prosecutors are given more discretion at the expense of judges. Prosecutors are often pressure to be tough on crime by the socie...
To begin, Mandatory minimum sentences result in prison overcrowding, and based on several studies, it does not alleviate crime, for example crimes such as shoplifting or solicitation. These sentencing guidelines do not allow a judge to take into consideration the first time offender, differentiate the deviance level of the offender, and it does not allow for the judge to alter a punishment or judgment to each individual case. When mandatory sentencing came into effect, the drug lords they were trying to stop are not the ones being affected by the sentences. It is the nonviolent, low-level drug users who are overcrowding the prisons as a result of these sentences. Both the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the Department of Justice have determined that mandatory sentencing is not an effective way to deter crime. Studies show that mandatory minimums have gone downhill due to racial a...
The roots of this law actually come from Washington State. This state was the first state to actually pass a no-nonsense three strikes policy. The first movement toward this began in the summer of 1991 as research project for the Washington Institute for Policy Studies. The main goals for the project were to examine and review the current practices of sentencing career criminals, and to make recommendations as needed. The researchers wanted anyone who as convicted of a third serious felony to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. They wanted there to be no sympathy whatsoever for the criminals. This law was not enforced there until December 1993. (Lacourse, p.1)
Upon examination, one finds capital punishment to be economically weak and deficient. A common misconception of the death penalty is that the cost to execute a convicted criminal is cheaper than to place a convict in prison for life without parole. Due to the United States judicial system, the process of appeals, which is inevitable with cases involving death as the sentence, incurs an extreme cost and is very time consuming. The cost of a capital trial and execution can be two to six times greater than the amount of money needed to house and feed a prisoner for life. "Studies show incarceration costs roughly $20,000 per inmate per year ($800,000 if a person lives 40 years in prison). Research also shows a death-penalty ease costs roughly $2 million per execution," (Kaplan 2). Capital punishment is extremely expensive and depletes state governments of money that could be used for a wide range of programs that are beneficial. As Belolyn Wiliams-Harold, an author for the journal Black Enterprise, writes that county governments are typically responsible for the costs of prosecution and the costs of the criminal trial, including attorney's fees, and salaries for the members of the courtroom. All this money is spent at the expense of the corrections department and crime prevention programs, which are already is strapped for cash (Williams-Harlod 1). These "financial constraints," such as capital punishment, do not promote a healthy, commercial society, but actually cost and harm the public.
The cost of the Death Penalty is highly expensive. A case to put someone in jail costs on average two million three hundred thousand dollars on average while to put an inmate in jail for forty years cost on average seven hundred and sixty thousand dollars (Friedman 11). In Texas the death penalty cost three times more money than putting an inmate in the highest security level in a jail for forty years (4). It also takes time for a death penalty case to be processed and a convict to be sentenced to the death penalty. Then it takes more time for the state to act and to administer the death penalty to people on death row. On average it takes ten to twenty years to execute a convicted criminal on death row (Friedman 11). Costs could be lowered by shortening the appeal process but this would only increase the risk of executing an innocent person.
life without parole, the death penalty is without a doubt much more expensive than life without parole. This is because capital cases go through a long and complicated judicial process. During this process, there can not be room for any mistakes. The most important focal point is to assure that innocent men and women are not executed for any crime that they did not commit. Even with a close watch on the prosecution 's it still can’t be ensured that “the risk of executing an innocent person cannot be completely eliminated.”