Life Without Parole

In capital punishment, vast amounts of money are wasted before the prisoner is assigned the death punishment. This is a result from the legal case that has to be processed prior to any decision made, which involves confirming if the suspect is indeed guilty. Without a doubt, this would require several months, documents, and lawyers, all requiring tedious effort and time. Due to this, millions of dollars are used in matters that aren’t necessary, whereas the costs of life imprisonment are significantly lower. As well, life imprisonment will positively benefit the social aspect of the community. Since this form of punishment uses less money, millions of dollars would be saved and chosen to go towards new schools, hospitals, technology, and other services in low-income communities. As a result, more opportunities will open to the less fortunate people, lowering the overall poverty and crime rate, as well as improving the education levels of the area. By choosing life imprisonment as the main form of ultimate punishment, the state of the nation will continue to steadily increase as money is saved, and investments are fulfilling its duty of steering the country towards

Keeping a prisoner in jail for life will be very expensive considering that it costs $80,000 a year; and the bad news is that the money comes from the taxpayer's pocket. Thousands of people will attack the death penalty. They will give emotional speeches about the one innocent man who might be executed. However, all of these people are forgetting one crucial element. They are forgetting the thousands of victims who die every year. This may sound awkward, but the death penalty saves lives. It saves lives because it stops those who murder from ever murdering again (Bryant). These opinions represent some of the strongest and most influential views that proponents hold. However, if our prison system could rehabilitate more effectively, perhaps those who murdered once, could change.

In my opinion the death penalty truly does help to eliminate the problem of overpopulation in prisons. When prisons become overpopulated more money is needed to pay for supplies for inmates. Why should taxpayers have to pay for criminal that have murdered people? Murdering someone is honestly one of the worst things a person could ever do. Americans should not have to pay to provide inmates with television. The person that was murdered is not going to be able to watch television, so why should the killer be able too. Inmates just sit in jail watching television, doing crafts, playing sports, eating, working, and sleeping. Many people say life without parole is better than the death penalty. I strongly disagree with this statement, because life without parole allows a killer to keep living their life after they took the life of another person. Plus keeping everyone just in prison without parole goes back to the fact it is very costly to pay for prison inmates. Overpopulation in prisons can lead to many riots, injuries, and even deaths. These riots can be from the cause of not enough food or supplies in the prison. Many prisoners have been known to kill their fellow cellmates, but yet all they get is another life sentence for taking another life. I do not agree that life without parole is better than the death penalty. After learning what talks place with killers in prison and

Using the death penalty cost more than life in prison. Having to execute someone costs about 1.26 million dollars while life in prison costs 740,000 thousand dollars. 31 states out of 19 still use the death penalty. There is a noticeable difference between the states that use and those that do not use the death penalty like lower homicide rates and the effects it has on society. The death penalty is a tool that people say helps stop crime and makes the world a safer place but studies show that the death penalty has bad effects. The death penalty actually increases crime and has bad effects on society. There have been studies and statistics used to see how the death penalty affects people and if it is actually helping or increasing crime. There

The death penalty is supposed to deter murder and bring the justice that the murder families of the victims should be rewarded (Hyden). Although many scientific researches can conclude that it does not deter murder and the members of the murder victims’ family have rejected/rejecting the program because it retraumatizes them with long process of trials, appeals, and of course the media (Hyden). In contrast, a sentence of life in prison is certain and instant, allowing the families to move on knowing that the justice of the crime is being served. Comparing whether or not the death penalty should be legalized, the reasons as to why it shouldn’t be, are strong enough to change one person’s mind. The death penalty still should be illegal in the United States.

The death penalty is a more expensive than the alternative life without the possibility of parole option in monetary terms, time, and resources spent. It is acknowledged that there is no national figure for the exact cost of the death penalty but many states and researchers do have estimates. All of which concluding that the death penalty is the more expensive than life without parole. This option is gradually becoming more expensive with each passing years due to factors that will be discussed from an article from The Marshall Project. The death penalty is more than the physical execution of the accused, it includes money and time dedicated to having inmates on death row. Death row does automatically imply heightened security and extra expenses. Maurice Chammah in his article “Six Reasons the Death Penalty is Becoming More Expensive” states that, “Felons sentenced to life in prison may eventually be placed in the general population, but death row inmates are virtually always housed in administrative segregation, or solitary confinement…” which can mean double or more the cost than of housing general population inmates (Chammah, 2015). The time inmates can spend on death row varies from months to years with the longest being close to 40 years. People do not realize that majority of the death penalty’s cost is not a part of any budget. Instead, they are buried in thicket of legal proceedings and hours spent by judges, clerks, prosecutors, experts and law enforcement

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

The death penalty wastes the money of the tax payers and is ineffective in stopping crime (Delcour). The cost that it takes to maintain the death penalty could be used for much more important statewide matters. Many law enforcement officials in states with the death penalty claim the money used toward the death penalty is a complete waste of tax dollars (Delcour). An example being, the opinion of law enforcement in states with the death penalty, “The cost of one execution is significantly higher than life imprisonment without parole. At a time when state budgets are slim and cutbacks are the norm, Delcour maintains that the high cost of the death penalty system makes little sense—especially when so many law enforcement officials consider it an ineffective deterrent against homicides and the least efficient use of taxpayer dollars” (Delcour). There are much less expensive ways to punish an inmate that will have a better effect on crime in those states, and cost less. There are greater causes that the money used on the death penalty can be used for. Education is one of the main things that the millions spent on capital punishment could be used for productively. The needs of millions of people in a state are far more important than the execution of a extremely small amount of people. A life-without-parole system would be much better than the current execution system (Delcour). The small amount of

Many people believe capital punishment is a better option for a community because it gets rid of the deadly criminals. Other people agree on this claim because the execution of these criminals creates space in federal prisons. While creating more jails and prisons would solve this issue, the death penalty would not drain money from the tax payers which is all that a person really looks at when considering this option.

The death penalty has very little impact. Studies imply that the death sentence deters crime efficiently and effectively. However, there is very little actual proof and research of this to be seen and is just estimations. In fact, the death penalty in states which is active has a higher crime rate than those states in the united states without it. The capital punishment is very unethical. When a denizen of the underworld commits an abominable crime, they are convicted. The actual punishment takes very long to occur, up to 20 years potentially for the execution. Furthermore, this draws out the grieving process for the victim's family or families if the crime was said murder. Executing/killing the criminals achieves practically nothing. Seeking retribution for victims by executing the perpetrator solves nor accomplishes nothing. The death sentence is solely there to execute criminals to fill some sort of misplaced sense of justice and very cathartic. The death penalty is incompetent as it has little impact on crime rates, is unethical and that it does nothing by executing death row

Funding a system that is so timely and costly is not helping the general population instead draining it. More money is spent on the people who are imprisoned especially those serving a death sentence than the American tax payers who pay for it. This public policy not only allow for the states’ to save money but if the money spent on this process was spent on systems that actually benefit the people such as education it can develop honorable citizens’ instead of expensive inmates. However, many in support of the death penalty may not see a problem with paying for the cost if it means keeping those of the convicted from committing any more crimes that can harm society. This policy proposes to get rid of the death penalty in place of having the prisoner serve life without parole, this in which could perhaps save millions. The policy still will keep the prisoner out of any ones harm and allowed them to still serve time for the law they have broken. Nevertheless, it would not have cost millions of dollars from tax payers in order to do

The death penalty isn’t anywhere on my list” ("New Voices” par. 5). Abbott, who oversees an entire police department says that with $250 million, he can reduce crime without the use of the death penalty. Not even the people arresting and charging criminals, support using millions of dollars to have them executed. This money is coming from their family’s income and could be used to benefit their loved ones directly. Essentially, life without parole costs way less than execution and, a person will eventually die for free in prison. Next, capital cases cause taxpayers to pay approximately $90,000 more per death row prisoner as opposed to prisoners in regular confinement. By putting people on life without parole, taxpayers save millions in taxes and eliminate the possibility of an irreversible mistake.

Malcolm B. Benson, a cold blooded killer was released in January, 2015, police say it only took 9 months to kill again. The death penalty can and will save lives and keep terrible killers just like Benson off the streets. All Malcolm received in the years between 1995 and 2015 was a free life just so he could go and kill another innocent person. The death penalty is needed now more than ever considering that Chicago abolished the death penalty in 2011 and homicides have been steadily increasing ever since.

Along with the Moral and Ethical problems the death penalty has monetary problems too. The cost of housing inmates on death row and the extra cost of appeals results in a total extra cost of 65 million dollars a year. All of that money is being wasted on a criminal who isn’t even worth the time to kill him. If

Furthermore, on top of not reducing criminal activities, Capital punishment is a waste of money. Dieter state that Over two-thirds of the states and the federal government have installed an exorbitantly expensive system of capital punishment which has been a failure by any measure of effectiveness. Literally, hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent on a response to crime which is calculated to be carried out on a few people each year and which has done nothing to stem the rise in violent crime (Dieter n.d.)When in fact there is another way to go about it. The death penalty is much more expensive than its closest alternative -- life imprisonment with no parole. Capital trials are longer and more expensive at every step than other murder trials. (Dieter n.d.)Over the past three decades, there has been a downward trend in the number of murders that lead to arrest and conviction to the point that only