Argumentative Essay: Cost Of The Death Penalty

Despite expenses incurred by the government from imposing capital punishment, death penalty is still cheap compared to the cost of life without parole. Studies have shown that the death penalty cost less. This connection can be made based on how much they serve yearly and cost of the execution. Serving their sentences cost up to 90,000 per year, this does not include health care and food expenses. According to the statics 90,000 per year can add up. This depends on how many years a person could serve, depending on how serious the crime is. A person could serve up to 25 years, by the time the 25 years are up, it can cost over 2,000,000. People who complain about the cost are the reason it was created. “Much of the cost indeed, much of the criticism of the death penalty, is attributed to decades of appeals. It is unsurprising that the loudest complaints about death penalty delays comes from death penalty opponents who have created them” (Evnen). This would not be a problem if the criminal would think before they do. For example, they do not take into consideration that the increase in the cost of life without parole. “Criminal defendants who are facing the death penalty which today must be pleaded by prosecutors up front, often want to make a deal by pleading guilty to first degree murder in exchange for a sentencing recommendation of life without parole. The existence of the death penalty as a possible sentence leads to guilty pleas that the money spent on trails and

Many counties complain about the high costs and the financial difficulty it causes. The document, What Politicians Don’t Say About the High Costs of the Death Penalty, written by Richard C. Dieter, executive director of The Death Penalty Information Center states, “Georgia is laying off 900 correctional personnel and New Jersey has had to dismiss 500 police officers. Yet these same states, and many others like them, are pouring millions of dollars into the death penalty with no resultant reduction in crime.” These cost of these trial are not only immense amounts of money to the local governments, but also people’s jobs and lives. It is an unnecessary process that millions of dollars are being poured into each

Not only does the death penalty not deter crime but it is also very expensive. The death penalty costs so much because of the appeal process. The appeal process is a very long and expensive process that can go on forever and costs the government millions. Many assume that abolishing the death penalty is wrong because it becomes unfair to the taxpayers because they think the cost is less than that of life in prison without parole. However life in prison is less expensive than the death penalty (Bedau). The death penalty is actually three times more than keeping a prisoner in prison for life without parole (Messerli). Death penalty trials are costly as well. “[S]tudies estimate that death penalty trials cost $1

According to Max Ehrenfruend of The Washington Post, he wrote, “Another study compared the amount of violence in U.S. states with and without the death penalty and also failed to find a deterrent effect.” Secondly, on the argument that the death penalty saves taxpayers money, this is yet another fallacy, as Kelly Phillips from “Forbes.com” notes, “According to a study by the Kansas Judicial Council (downloads as a pdf), defending a death penalty case costs about four times as much as defending a case where the death penalty is not considered. In terms of costs, a report of the Washington State Bar Association found that death penalty cases are estimated to generate roughly $470,000 in additional costs to the prosecution and defense versus a similar case without the death penalty.” Erb then writes, “Even when a trial wasn't necessary (because of a guilty plea), those cases where the death penalty was sought still cost about twice as much as those where death was not sought.” Lastly, there is the verity that, because we are flawed, just like all other types of creatures that inhabit this planet, we tend to sentence innocent individuals to death due to believing in invalid testimonies by deceitful or misinformed witnesses. Moreover, Ed Pilkington from The Guardian

Compared to the death penalty, life in prison is perceived as an ethical decision, while the choice to inflict the death penalty is irreversible, the latter allows for better judgement in the long run. An article from, the Nation, contrasts the costs between both methods, "carrying out an execution costs at least twice as much-and perhaps five times as much- as sentencing a murderer to life without parole" (David Dow, Life Without Parole: A Different Death Penalty, the Nation). Clearly, if the economy is to be impacted to such an extent, then law enforcement must re-evaluate whether or not the death penalty is actually meaningful in the long run. If the government were to eliminate the funding used for resources towards the death row, and instead facilitate the money elsewhere, it would serve more meaningful purposes. Moreover, life in prison guarantees a, "Swift, severe punishment. It provides justice to survivors of murder victims and allows more resources to be invested in preventing violence." (Is Life in Prison without Parole a Better Option then Death Penalty, ProCon). The answer to seeking justice for one crime, should not be answered for by committing another. If this were a concept applied by people in everyday life, then murder rates would escalate and hold potential for anarchy. On a realistic thought, a majority of the problems related to the death penalty can be avoided through a more humane penance. It also leads to whether or not government institutions should have the warrant to issue capital

Not only does it provides justice to survivors of murder victims, but it also allows more resources to be invested into solving other murders and preventing future violence. We should use the hundreds of millions of dollars we'll save to protect some of those essential services, such as education. The annual cost to keep a prisoner in jail is $43,352 per year. The annual cost of sentencing the death penalty $1.26 million. $43,352 per year with life imprisonment would amount to a tremendous amount more that $1.26 million. Claimed 'cost studies,' often performed by or at the will of death penalty opponents, are frequently so incomplete as to be false and misleading. For example, they do not take into account the increase in the cost of life without parole cases if there were no death penalty. It is not cheaper to keep a criminal confined, because most of the time he will appeal just as much causing as many costs as a convict under death

In order to carry out the death penalty, a state must have a substantial amount of money on hand. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the state of California has spent a total of four billion dollars on capital proceedings. (Marceau, 2013) The pre-Trial costs alone totaled $1.94 billion. Another nine hundred and twenty-five million dollars has been spent on appeals and state Habeas Corpus Petitions. Federal Habeas Corpus Appeals can account for another seven hundred and seventy-five million dollars of the four billion that the state has spent on this form of justice. Finally the overall costs of incarceration nears another one billion dollars. If the state of California were to simply get rid of the death penalty, the state would be able to pocket more than 4.5 billion dollars over the next 15-20 years depending on the exact amount of cases the state is presented with. (Marceau, 2013)

The primary purpose of the criminal justice system is to protect society. All features of the system; detaining delinquents, trials, and punishments all have costs. Reduction in any part of the criminal justice system can potentially result in a harmful society. The question most asked about the death penalty is, “Why should honest, hardworking taxpayers, have to pay for murderers for the rest of their life instead of executing them?” Actually the death penalty is the most expensive part off the system. According to Dr. Ernest Gross, a Creighton University economics professor, who conducted a study in August 2016, the death penalty cost an average 23.2 million more per year than alternative sentences (Gross). The study found that states with the death penalty spend about 3.54% of overall state budgets on court, corrections and other criminal justice functions associated with the death penalty, while states without the death penalty spend about 2.93% on those functions (Gross). The death penalty is more expensive than life without parole because the constitution requires an extensive and complex judicial process for capital crimes. This is to ensure that innocent men and women are not executed for crimes they did not

With all of the special lawyers, court dates, prison cells and maintenance, a death penalty case can cost millions of dollars. Like a lot of things, capital punishment is paid for with tax dollars. Cases with the death penalty can cost upwards of 1.7 million dollars while cases without it are usually about 740,000 dollars. Maintaining death row prisoners can also bring costs up immensely. One of the most severe instances of these high costs is California. Every year it costs California 180 million dollars more to maintain death row prisoners than it does to maintain LWOP prisoners. They have put thirteen people to death from 1973 until now, and each case has cost 137 million dollars. A 2011 study showed that California has spent four billion dollars on capital punishment since 1976, and that has only grown higher. This is only one of the horrendous examples of our tax dollars at work. Do we really want our hard earned money going towards the killing of what might be innocent

There is a better way to execute someone without the risk of killing hundreds of innocents, an example is life without parole, an example is Oregon there is the option of sentencing murderers to life in prison without parole. Every day people are executed by the state for a variety of crimes, sometimes for acts that should not be criminalized. Before people die they are imprisoned for years on death row, not knowing when their time is up, or if they will see their families one last time. Not only is capital punishment morally incorrect but it does not help the economy of the states. Enforcing the death penalty costs Florida $51 million a year above what it would cost to punish all first degree murderers with life in prison without parole. Another example is Texas, the average cost of death penalty is $2.3 million, three times the price payed to imprison someone for fourty years. (Death Penalty Information Centre). Currently the state of California is fighting to eliminate capital punishment with Proposition 62, the passing of this proposition could save the state $150 million per year. A death row sentence costs eighteen more than life in prison, all mosey that could be spent on education, public safety, and crime prevention. (Official Voter Information

Firstly, the death penalty is a very expensive process with a lot of time and resources being pulled. In the state of Texas, it cost $2.3 Million per execution, which is the same cost to put that person in a maximum-security prison under solitary confinement for 40 years (Cary). This is completely absurd that the death penalty is even thought to be a better option, especially since the person is most likely not to be in solitary confinement for 40 years. Assuming the person on death row is around the age of nineteen by the time they would reach that price of $2.3 million they would be lucky to be still alive. To put the money being used into a much larger perspective in the state of California taxpayers can pay anywhere from $63 million to $114 million a year on the death penalty which is more than it would cost to put them in prison

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. Cases without the death penalty cost roughly $740,000 while cases where the death penalty is sought cost about $1.26 million. Maintaining each death row prisoner costs taxpayers $90,000 more per year than a prisoner in general population. (Top 10 Pros… 2015). A study of the cost of the death penalty in Colorado showed that death penalty proceedings required six times the days in court and took much longer to solve than life-without-parole (LWOP) cases. When people try to say it cost less to tax payers to put a man to death then to care for them in prisons for life they are not aware of the facts. Why do these cases take so long from sentencing to execution? After a person is convicted of a capital crime, they tend not to accept a sentence of "death" without a fight. They appeal to a higher court, and a higher one and a higher one, trying to overturn their conviction for any reason. Resolving those numerous appeals takes years. It's built into the system, and it helps to ensure that the State is certain of a person's guilt before the actual execution. According to a study published in 2004 in the Journal of Parable legal studies, five percent of the 5,826 death sentences imposed from 1973 to 1995 were carried out in those years. The study found there was a 68%

The topic that is at the forefront of every death penalty argument these days is the cost-comparison of “life in prison vs. death”. There are a couple different ways to dissect this issue. It is true that a capital case is more expensive than a life sentence case. This is because of the long drawn out nature of these cases. The appeals that are associated with them cost the court even more time and money. Finally the burden on the taxpayer for having to foot the bill for their housing in prison while they wait for years on death row. California is home to the largest death row population in the U.S., it costs an extra $90,000 per inmate to imprison someone sentenced to death, an additional expense that totals more than $63.3 million annually for 667 inmates on death row. Today this seems to be the major argument for the population that does not

The article in the textbook The Death Penalty in the United States and Worldwide was fairly informative. One of the points it brought up was the cost of life without parole vs the death penalty, and those costs were stated as life without parole costing 1.1 million dollars vs the death penalty costing 3 million dollars (Schaefer, Richard T, 2009 pg 176). This is a significant difference in price. The text

The death Penalty is a very controversial topic to many. Some believe that the death penalty should not only be in place but there should be more executions every year. While others believe that the death penalty is going out of style and it is not serving its purpose of deterring crime as it did before. Although there are many claims supporting both sides still over half of Americans are for capital punishment in some way, but what causes someone to be sentenced to death? According to the article “Against the American System of Capital Punishment” by Jack Greenberg the worst crime is, “a putative killer of one’s parent or child” (Greenberg). What makes this the worst crime? And out of the few executions are these the only people getting