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Economic benefits of the death penalty
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The Valley of Death It’s 4:35 pm, as he walked through the shadow of the valley of death, he must had taken a look and realized all the damage that he had done. Leon Chauncey Cooper, a San Quentin State Prison death row inmate convicted of the 1998 rape and murder of his stepdaughter in Sacramento County died Wednesday March 18, 2015. He was not executed, but pronounced dead at 4:40 p.m. His cause of death is pending the results of an autopsy, (CBS). With Leon Chauncey, the list of inmates in death row that have died of other causes surpasses the list of inmates that have been executed in the State of California. That leads me to question, how efficient death penalty really is? Viewing this subject from the economic, moral, and from a broken judicial system; isn’t time to abandon the death penalty? The Death penalty is also a matter of resources, economically speaking. Since 1978 when the death penalty was reinstated in California, the state has spent around 4 billion dollars on the issue. There is a total of 761 inmates on death row and since 1978 there have been only 14 executions in the state. The cost per execution is close to 300 million dollars. Inmates have to undergo decades on death row and tedious and lengthy trials that cost a lot of money to the tax payers. (Alarcon and Mitchell), money that …show more content…
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.
Many people are led to believe that the death penalty doesn’t occur very often and that very few people are actually killed, but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1,359 people have been executed as a result of being on death row since 1977 to 2013. Even though this form of punishment is extremely controversial, due to the fact that someone’s life is at stake, it somehow still stands to this very day as our ultimate form of punishment. Although capital punishment puts murderers to death, it should be abolished because killing someone who murdered another, does not and will not make the situation any better in addition to costing tax payers millions of dollars.
Even the worst crimes should not be paid with the simple escape of death. The death penalty costs far more than a life sentence, though it seems like the opposite would be true. With the multiple appeals and trials and relocations, it’s millions down the drain. According to deathpenalty.org it costs taxpayers $90,000 more a year to maintain a death row prisoner versus maintaining a prisoner in general population. Add in the cost of execution depending on the method, $24 million for each electrocution in Florida, at least $86 per lethal injection, around $25,000 for a fire squad execution,(deathpenaltyinfo.org) and it’s even more for a quick end.
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...
Unlike popular belief, the cost of sentencing someone to death is actually more expensive than a life sentence in prison. In Washington, since the death penalty was reinstated 5 people have been put to death costing taxpayers roughly $120 million, that's roughly $24 million per case (Seattle University, 2015). A reason that people advocate strongly for the death penalty is because they believe that they should not have to pay for the costs to keep criminals fed, sheltered and imprisoned. In fact, 56% of Canadians surveyed believed that the one time cost of a lethal injection is cheaper and will allow their money to go towards something more advantageous like healthcare or education (Angus Reid). This is actually quite different from the truth, in fact is estimated that it costs $740 000 on average to put someone in prison for life. It is also estimated that it costs roughly $1.26 million to sentence someone to death (Seattle University, 2015). (There seems to be a discrepancy between how much a single case costs and how much Washington spent since the death penalty has been reinstated, but I could not find evidence to why that is). Among the reasons why the death penalty is so expensive is the fact that the time in courts is quite lengthy. Jury trials averaged 40.13 days in cases where the death penalty was being sought, but only 16.79 days
The United States should dispose of the death penalty due to the astronomical price it costs taxpayers to execute a prisoner. It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, as though life imprisonment were obviously more expensive than executions. If one takes into account all of the relevant costs, the reverse is true. The death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment. A murderer trial normally takes much longer when the death penalty is at issue than when it is not. Litigation costs- including the time of the judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court reporters are all borne by the taxpayer. Florida, with one of the nations largest death rows, is a ...
Thus, many groups of people are involved in a death penalty case. However, other also equally important factors are also involved, such as money and time. Each state varies in amount expended towards death penalty and life imprisonment. However, in Texas, the state with the highest capital punishment rates in the United States alone, it is stated that each individual in a death penalty case “costs taxpayers about $2.3 million. 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. They take so long because they are trying to avoid as many mistakes as possible, meaning they don’t wanted to convict or even worse execute an innocent person wrongly accused or framed for a
A common argument for the death penalty is the idea of “an eye for an eye.” If someone commits murder then they should be killed as a punishment, but how much are we willing to pay for this way of thinking? An eye for an eye comes with a large price tag. According to an article in the California Law Review, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California did a study to see how much California was spending on the death penalty. The ACLU found out that taxpayers spend “$117 million per year seeking execution of the people currently on death row. This number amounts over time to $4 billion more that the state would have spent if these inmates had been sentenced to life without parole” (Colon, 1380). Author Sara Colon also mentions that considering the “current fiscal crisis” in California, “the costs of capital punishment seem prohibited” (Colon, 1380). We could have used those $4 billion dollars on other things like welfare programs, health care, or putting that money into colleges for young people’s education.
Death Penalty Is Expensive). California cost $137 million a year, it would cost $11.5 million
The death penalty is much more expensive than life without parole because the Constitution requires a long and complex judicial process for capital cases. If the death penalty was replaced with a sentence of Life Without the Possibility of Parole, which costs millions less and also ensures that the public is protected while eliminating the risk of an mistake, the money saved could be spent on programs that actually improve the communities in which we live. Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crime anymore than long prison sentences. Moreover, states without the death penalty have much lower murder rates. The South accounts for 80% of US executions and has the highest regional murder rate (Death Penalty
The death penalty has been part of the American judicial system since the country’s founding [1]. Most people see the death penalty as the fairest way to punish those who have killed, because, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “the instinct for retribution is part of the nature of man.” I do agree that the deliverance of justice is an important factor in any public policy. However, it is also important to consider the more pragmatic aspects, like the cost to the state. It is possible that the financial cost could be outweighed by the societal benefit. However, upon researching the death penalty, one would discover that the cost of capital punishment is unreasonably high, particularly in the state of California, especially when we consider how rarely the death sentence is actually implemented. In times like these, times of economic turmoil and scarce financial resources, the state cannot afford a system that is so expensive and also so rarely utilized. I believe that, in the state of California, the death penalty is overly expensive and so rarely implemented that it should be abolished.
While one person lays with their wrists circumscribed to the worn leather of the gurney, another person holds two skin-piercing needles. The individual holding the needles is an inexperienced technician who obtains permission from the United States federal government to murder people. One needle is held as a precaution in case the pain is too visible to the viewers. Another dagger filled with a lethal dosage of chemicals is inserted into the vein that causes the person to stop breathing. When the cry of the heart rate monitor becomes monotone, the corrupt procedure is complete. Lying in the chair is a corpse when moments ago it was an individual who made one fatal mistake that will never get the chance to redeem (Ecenbarger). Although some people believe that the death
Many people, including some higher educated people, tend to believe that executing someone is a lot cheaper than the alternative, which is life in prison without the possibility of parole. Indeed, this thought seems like common sense. However, extensive research has been conducted that contradicts that belief. For instance, a study conducted in Maryland, in 2008, found that the state spends roughly 1.9 million dollars more per capital case, compared to non-capital cases (Warden, 2009). But how can this be some may ask. Well, the reason capital punishment costs more than life without the possibility of parole, is because death penalty cases are longer and more expensive. Because the capital punishment is an irreversible sentence, the state, or government, is required to heighten the defendant’s due process in order to decrease the chance of the defendant being innocent (DPIC). Furthermore, not only is it more expensive for the trial phase, it is also a higher price for a state to imprison death row inmates compared to other
The first reason why death penalty should be allowed and get more active is life sentence is costly. According to “What is the Average Cost to House Inmates in Prison”, the average cost of housing an inmate in the U.S. was $31,286 in 2012 for per year. According to the “Who, what, where and why”, the United States has roughly 2.4 million people in prisons. Therefore, the money which America pays to keep prisoners who are in prisons is about $75120000000 for per year.
If a criminal is sentenced to life in jail, then the cost of their imprisonment would be many times this. In the USA, the average cost per prisoner annually in jail is $29,000. The cost of the drugs used for the lethal injection is believed to be $86.08. This is far less than the cost of keeping a prisoner in jail, and would save the government money that could be used to try and make the community a better and safer place. Secondly, many believe that capital punishment is right because of the justice given to the victim’s family.
The death penalty is an economically wasteful method of punishment. It has been calculated that “if the death penalty was extinguished…we could save $11 million a year” (Locke). While this may not seem a significant sum, ...