The death penalty is often thought of to be a deterrence to murder. The idea is that criminals are supposed to think what their consequences could be before committing the crime which in this case would be the death penalty. However, what are the chances that a criminal is actually going to stop and think about whether or not the death penalty could be a consequence. If criminals want to engage in violence, they are going to. Consequences are not going to alter that state of mind. According to Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, police officers all over the country “do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder” (Dieter). In fact, states in which the death penalty is legal are the states with …show more content…
It is highly likely that some of these people will die of natural causes before they are ready to be executed. On average, only twelve percent of people who face death penalty sentences are actually executed (Evans). It costs more to have a convict on death row waiting for execution than to house that prisoner in a regular prison facility. For example, compared to an inmate in general population, having an inmate on death row costs California an extra ninety thousand dollars a year per inmate (Dieter). This is because death row inmates are going to require a higher level of security for safety precautions such as suicide watch as well as safety for other prisoners and staff.
Trying a capital case requires an enormous amount of effort from the prosecution as well as the defense. They have to take the time to comb through witnesses, testimony, get mental health evaluations, go through jury selection, and if convicted, all the mandatory appeals. This process takes a significant amount of time because of the need to be fully prepared. On average, it takes a year for capital cases to even get to the trial stage (Evans). There is also an enormous amount of pressure on the prosecution because they bear the burden of proof (Dieter). The prosecutor needs to provide all the evidence that a person is in fact guilty in fear of sentencing an innocent person to death. Attorneys also need to explore the
deter crime? A study into the effect of Capital Punishment said, 'the presence of the death penalty in law and practice has no discernible effect as a deterrent to murder.' How does this serve as a deterrent to crime? It offers the convict an easy way out with no reflection on what they've done. They don't learn from their mistakes and although there is obviously no risk of re-offence, the criminal cannot give
It can cost as much as 3 times more to keep a prisoner on death row before execution than it costs to take care of a prisoner with a life sentence. In fact, defense costs alone for death penalty trials cost on average $395,762 per case, compared to $98,963 per case when the death penalty was not sought (Kansas Judicial Council). A study conducted by Seattle University on the costs of the death penalty i.e. the cost of appeals, hiring attorneys, and keeping a prisoner on death row before execution in Washington State found that, a death penalty case costs on average one million dollars more than a similar case that does not warrant a death penalty ($3.07 million versus $2.01 million). In addition, due to the longevity of death penalty cases, mostly as a result of the long appeal processes, statistics have shown the same high cost trends in all of the states that apply the death penalty. Thus, during these times of economic crisis, it is only wise for states and the government to spend and invest taxpayers’ money into more important areas, such as health care and
One argument from death penalty supporters is that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to prevent other people from committing murders. It is the belief that people will think out the consequences of their actions before murdering, and consider the
Many people who are supporters of the death penalty say that it’s a successful deterrent. But this isn’t true because the death penalty is administered very inconsistently and arbitrarily. “Only a small proportion of first-degree murders is sentenced to death, and even fewer are executed” (Bedau). There are also several states that have a lower criminal rate without using capital punishment. For example Wisconsin, Iowa, and Michigan all get along just fine without the use of the death penalty. Also “…all other Western industrial countries get along quite well without killing their citizens” (Ryan). There are many judges that are against the use of capital punishment as well.
By the 1950s, it was not uncommon for both state and federal appellate courts to review a defendant’s capital conviction. In recent
Of course, people think death penalty is not just about the punishment. People who believe in death penalty show the reason why they do is that death penalty for sure is a deterrent to homicide. They also take this as a justification of supporting death penalty system (2010). So people actually expect something out of this system other than just killing the murderers simply for what they did. This is supposed to be a great solution to make better society by lessoning the potential crime. In theory, the fact that society has a death penalty system should somewhat scares the potential murderer and prevents them from committing murder. But the percentage of murder crime shows the otherwise. Do potential murderers consider the death penalty before they the murder? The answers are likely to be No. "Most deterrence research has found that
In 2003, a study found that death penalty cases cost 70% more than cases seeking life without parole. The average case seeking the death penalty costs 1.26 million, while the average cases not seeking the death penalty costs 740,000 dollars. For instance, in California, a state that uses the death penalty, it costs about 137 million dollars a year. If they did not use the death penalty, it would cost about 11.5 million dollars a year. The average cost of keeping a criminal in jail each year is anywhere from $30,000 to $168,000, depending when and where they are imprisoned. Many people also believe that using or not the death penalty will act as a deterrence, however 88% of criminologists do not believe that the death penalty has a big impact on preventing crime. 87% say that abolishing the death penalty would also have no big impact on crime and homicide.
All of the research that I have done suggests that the death penalty is not a major source of deterrence for criminals to commit severe crimes such as homicide. In a 2009 survey of America’s top criminologists, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology and written by Professor Michael Radelet, eighty-eight percent of the expert criminologists stated that they do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent for criminals to commit homicide. Respondents to this survey were asked to base their answers on research, rather
The death penalty does not deter criminals from committing crime. Most criminals who commit crimes do not have intentions of being caught and believe that they are invincible from the repercussions of their actions. Because of this, the death penalty really does not deter criminals from committing a crime. In fact, the death penalty could be considered an “easy way out” because the criminal does not have to spend several months, years, or even the rest of his or her life behind bars with little contact with the outside world. The criminal can just die and no longer have to suffer with knowing what he or she did, how it has affected others, and how it will continue to affect his or her life. Also, many criminals end up committing suicide in prison because they do not want to have to spend every day locked in a jail cell for extended periods of time.
Lastly, prior to a person being put to death, many of them stay on death row for over ten years fighting the automatic appeal they are given with the courts to overturn their conviction. The additional cost of confining an inmate to death row in the State of California, as compared to the maximum security prisons where those sentenced to life without the possibility of parole ordinarily serve their sentences, is $90,000 per year per inmate. “Currently with California’s current death row population of 670 that accounts for $63.3 million annually.”
The majority of research I found states that capital punishment and life imprisonment has the same deterrent effect. There is not enough conclusive evidence that proves people are deterred from committing capital crimes through the use of the death penalty. Capital punishment does not act as a
The cost of the death penalty compared to the life sentence is excessive. Sending someone to jail and letting them die of natural causes is way cheaper than executing them. According to the Los Angeles Times (Williams, 2011) the death penalty cost Californians $184 million a year. Over 20 years, the state would save more than $2.34 billion if they actually sentenced everyone on death row to life in prison. It costs 20 times more for an execution than a life-without-parole case with the cost of attorneys being $300,000 more to represent a person on death row than someone with a life sentence charge. Along with jury selection of capital cases being 3-4 weeks longer and costing $200,000 more and with the heightened security at execution adding $100,663 with many other expenses. The least expensive death penalty trial costs $1.1 million more than the most expensive life-without-parole case. Making lifetime imprisonment the more sensible option cost wise.
The test for deterrence is not whether executions produce lower murder rates, but that executions produce fewer murders than if the death penalty did not exist. For example, the fact that the state of Delaware executes more people per capita (1/87,500) than any other state and has a murder rate 16 times lower than Washington, D.C. (5/100,000 vs 78.5/100,000) is not proof, per se, that the death penalty deters murder in Delaware or that the lack of the death penalty escalates murders and violent crime in Washington, D.C., which has the highest violent crime and murder rates in the U.S. Be careful how you explain and understand deterrence.
Since the foundation of our nation the Death Penalty has been a way to punish prisoners that have committed heinous crimes, however since the turn of the 20th century the practice of Capital Punishment has been questioned on its usage in America and the world as a whole. The Death Penalty is used in America to punish criminals who have committed murders, or taken the life of an innocent person, and while the death penalty seems like it is doing justice to those who have killed others it is actually being used improperly in most situations, while also hindering our economy and is a means of ending more lives than necessary. The Death Penalty can be a valid source of punishment for criminals in the US however due to the misuse of this power by the government it is a huge detriment to our nation and the people that inhabit it. Because of the fact that Capital Punishment is used unfairly, and ineffectively in our nation it is an obsolete form of punishment and should have no place in the United States justice department.
I found a chart on the website http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-state. The chart on the site shows that murder rates were actually higher in states with the death penalty than in states that did not have the death penalty (Death Penalty Information Center, 2010). If the death penalty is a deterrent, wouldn’t these rates be reversed? In an article published in the New York Times entitled ABSENCE OF EXECUTIONS: A special report.; States With No Death Penalty Share Lower Homicide Rates, states that states who do have the death penalty actually have higher murder rates than the national average and in the past twenty years the rates have been found to be 48 to 101 percent higher than the states who do not have the death penalty (Bonner, Raymond and Fessenden, Ford, 2000). The article also states that as of 1998 Hawaii had the fifth lowest homicide rate in the nation and Hawaii is one of the states in which no death penalty is enforced (Bonner, Raymond and Fessenden, Ford, 2000). This illustrates to me that the death penalty in fact does not act as a deterrent for one to not commit violent crime. If it were a deterrent it would show that states with the death penalty had lower homicide rates than those states without the death penalty. There is also a statement in the article from John O’Hair, a Detroit District Attorney, that basically stated that