A new report from the Death Penalty Information Center takes a look at an often-neglected piece of the debate over capital punishment – the financial cost.
The death penalty in the U.S. is an enormously expensive and wasteful program with no clear benefits. All of the studies on the cost of capital punishment conclude it is much more expensive than a system with life sentences as the maximum penalty. In a time of painful budget cutbacks, states are pouring money into a system that results in a declining number of death sentences and executions that are almost exclusively carried out in just one area of the country. As many states face further deficits, it is an appropriate time to consider whether maintaining the costly death penalty system is being smart on crime.
The numbers the study throws around are pretty harrowing. In the most extreme example, California is spending $137 million per year to maintain death row despite having no executions over the last 3 1/2 years. The justification for maintaining death rows in the middle of an economic crisis has become less and less tenable. This is especially true in the wake of revelations about Cameron Todd Willingham, an apparently innocent man who was killed at the hands of the state of Texas in 2004, because so many of the extra costs incurred by the death penalty seek to prevent such circumstances as killing the innocent.
Clearly, eliminating the death penalty cannot solve all of these problems, but the savings would be significant. Where studies have been done, the excess expenditures per year for the death penalty typically are close to $10 million per state. If a new police officer (or teacher, or ambulance driver) is paid $40,000 per year, this death penalty money could be used to fund 250 additional workers in each state to secure a better community.
The study estimates that the total costs one death penalty trial are as much as $1 million dollars extra to the state over a trial where the maximum penalty is life in prison without the possibility of parole. And that’s a low estimate; the number varies depending on the state and its pay scales.
A national poll of police chiefs, released in the report, shows that the death penalty ranks at the bottom of their list of priorities on how to allocate criminal justice resources. In a revealing statistic, 69% of police chiefs agree that politicians support capital punishment simply to portray themselves as “tough on crime.”
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was it Maryland much earlier in the year that was considering doing away with it all together due to financial considerations ?
New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska and New Hampshire as well.
link
It’s a shame we’ll end the death penalty just because of money. But, as long as we end it…
Maryland came close, but ended up settling for a bill that limited the death penalty. Since almost no one ever gets sentenced to death in MD, and since even fewer have that have the sentence carried out, I’m not sure that was a great strategic move. MD ending the death penalty would encourage other states to follow – that bill probably won’t.
In most of those states, costs were one of the issue raised, but fairness and moral objections were prominent as well.
This is a DUH to me. Hasn’t every study of the death penalty since the year 00 (oops the 19-00s) concluded the same thing?
We can no longer afford these paranoid luxuries that are remnants of the Reagan era.
Hey, they could always just call themselves “Pro-Life” so as not to lose their fundy creds…
sad but true.
Slightly OT would we have so many Death Penalty cases if we did not have such a difference between rich and poor? Sure Mexico most of South America beats us in this difference but rich there is not the same as rich here. I can get the new I phone, hybrid car etc way before its introduced in Mexico.
Also all the other wealthy first world nations I can thing of have less of a gap between rich and poor.
Eli is upstairs!
Keep Me Secret, Keep Me Safe
Next topic race is a factor how about every one White and Dark have an attractive White actor read the accused responses to the jury no mention in the court or the press about race.
They could give their answers with the same device Bush used for the Kerry debates?
After all sociopaths the really bad crooks can fool a jury so body language is not that helpful.
Once on a trip, I was watching Faux News (because the hotel clerk had it on in the lobby) and one of the the blonde spokesmouths was decrying the fact that the Death Penalty was so much more expensive than locking someone up for life. Even she got it. Didn’t like it, but she got it.
The government should not be in the business of killing people. That said, a lot of people would rather have the death penalty than life in prison. The whole thing is totally messed up.
This is a complex topic, but suffice it say that the death penalty results in a lot of taxpayer expense. Republicans are more in favor of punitive legal measures like this, but they are often quite unaware of the costs involved and what it really means. IMHO, most conservatives appear to want to be as punitive and judgemental as possible – which is ok, I guess – but they are lazy, don’t do their homework, and don’t get the real costs involved.
The Innocence Project – http://www.innocenceproject.org/ – has been working on the issues of, well, innocents being convicted and sentenced to death. It happens far too often for my liking and has recently been epitomized by the recent murder of Cameron Todd Willingham in Rick Perry’s Texas. There was evidence that Willingham was not guilty, but Perry refused to grant him reprieve to pursue justice. There is a recent New Yorker article about this travesty that is well worth googling and reading. It easily sums up a lot that is wrong with the death penalty.
This situation is also linked to issues like the 3 Strikes law in CA, where the state has a giant incarcerated population. Many really haven’t done terribly bad crimes. Should they punished? yes. But what’s happened is that people are incarcerated for long periods of time for relatively minor crimes, having to be exposed to hardened criminals. Too bad for them, you say? Don’t do the crime, if you don’t want to do the time? Well, yeah.
But. The issue again comes down to money. Republicans in CA came out in force on a lot of “tough on crime” ballot initiatives, but it’s Republicans who mightily resist paying taxes and constantly want them lowered. Riddle me this: how do you pay for all of these incarcerated prisoners and death row inmates without adequate taxation?
I believe that stats will bear out that it’s cheaper to incarcerate a priosoner for life than to have them on death row, even if that prisoner is ultimately murdered by the state. Republicans need to wrap their pea brains around all these unfunded mandates they come up with just to be punitive & show how “tough on crime” they are but don’t want to pay for.
There are a lot of alternative measures for dealing with criminals and others who break the law. A lot of prisoners are convicted for drug use (not drug dealing, which is a different matter). Our society and such people would be much better served with by having these offenders go through adequate drug treatment programs. Most conservatives, though, see this as being “soft” on crime (which it’s not), and whine about why should they pay for that? They don’t get that it ends up being more expensive in the long run to incarcerate drug addicts, who don’t get adequate treatment, don’t learn how to change their ways, and just end up back in the system costing taxpayers, rather than becoming productive taxpayers, themselves. Frustrating and stupid.
The so-called “pro-life” party might take a look at what it really means to be pro-life and stop murdering adults (including abortion doctors) for a change. Strong language? Yes. Unfair? I don’t think so.
If their loved one was murdered, most people, myself included, would want the murderer fried — that’s human nature. But it’s the job of the state to temper the vengeance of wronged parties & to refrain from committing state-sponsored murders. When even the right-wing Popes abhor executions, it is antideluvian that the majority of U.S. states still spend taxpayer dollars killing people on purpose.
The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com