Death penalty is more cost-effective than housing and feeding someone in prison for life.
In California, home to the nation's biggest death row population at 667, 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, according to a 2008 study by the state's Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice. He commuted the sentences of all 167 death row convicts, most to life imprisonment without parole. His moratorium is still in effect. Across the country, the number of prisoners exonerated and released from death row is more than 130, with thousands of appeals clogging the courts. = $1,028,700+ MORE than a non-death penalty case. With the exception of a man convicted last year, the seven Washington inmates on death row now have been there an average of 14 years; add over another half million in prison costs not counting the extra expense of death row. Per Prisoner Per year = $43,352*. However, from our calculations, the death penalty from beginning to end would have cost more, but just how much more is hard to say. While the death penalty is the most final of punishments it's far from a quick process. And using a 2006 study by the state bar association the costs add up. By comparison, a non-death penalty murder case in nearby Lubbock County typically costs about $3,000, court officials estimate. The average cost to house an inmate in Texas prisons is $47.50 per day, according to Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Thus it would cost about $17,340 to house an inmate for a year and $693,500 for 40 years, far less than even part of the death penalty costs. The regional public defender's office estimates that just the legal costs for a death penalty case from indictment to execution are $1.2 million. County estimates in Texas indicate that the death penalty system is much more expensive than sentencing inmates to life imprisonment. Gray County spent nearly $1 million seeking the death penalty against Levi King, even though he pleaded guilty to murder. A Seattle University study examining the costs of the death penalty in Washington found that each death penalty case cost an average of $1 million more than a similar case where the death penalty was not sought ($3.07 million, versus $2.01 million). According to state and federal records obtained by The Los Angeles Times, maintaining the California death penalty system costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year beyond the cost of simply keeping the convicts locked up for life. The study counted death penalty case costs through to execution and found that the median death penalty case costs $1.26 million. Non-death penalty cases were counted through to the end of incarceration and were found to have a median cost of $740,000. According to state and federal records obtained by The Los Angeles Times, maintaining the California death penalty system costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year beyond the cost of simply keeping the convicts locked up for life. Texas death penalty cases cost more than non-capital cases. Each death penalty case in Texas 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. (Executions Cost Texas Millions, Dallas Morning News, March 8, 1992). According to state and federal records obtained by The Los Angeles Times, maintaining the California death penalty system costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year beyond the cost of simply keeping the convicts locked up for life. That translates to $37.2 million for each of the state’s five executions since the state reenacted the death penalty. The study estimates that the average cost to Maryland taxpayers for reaching a single death sentence is $3 million - $1.9 million more than the cost of a non-death penalty case. According to state and federal records obtained by The Los Angeles Times, maintaining the California death penalty system costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year beyond the cost of simply keeping the convicts locked up for life. It costs approximately $90,000 more a year to house an inmate on death row, than in the general prison population or $57.5 million annually. The Attorney General devotes about 15% of his budget, or $11 million annually to death penalty cases. The cost of a system in which the number of death-eligible crimes was significantly narrowed would be $130 million per year. The cost of a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty would be $11.5 million per year. Read the report. Conclusions. This study concludes that the enhanced cost of trying a death penalty case is at least $1.25 million more than trying a comparable murder case resulting in a sentence of life in prison without parole. The cost of a system in which the number of death-eligible crimes was significantly narrowed would be $130 million per year. The cost of a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty would be $11.5 million per year. Read the report. The alarming cost of the death penalty. Many people believe that the death penalty is more cost-effective than housing and feeding someone in prison for life. In reality, the death penalty’s complexity, length, and finality drive costs through the roof, making it much more expensive. 1 More than a dozen states have found that death penalty cases are up to 10 times more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases. 2  The most rigorous cost study in the country found that a single death sentence in Maryland costs almost $2 million more than a comparable non-death penalty case.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29552692/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/execute-or-not-question-cost/ http://www.nbcrightnow.com/story/15519792/what-costs-more-the-death-penalty-or-life-in-prison http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty-costs-texas-outweigh-life-imprisonment http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42 http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42 http://ejusa.org/learn/cost/
life vs death cost