NORTON META TAG

06 June 2010

ON THE DEATH PENALTY IN AMERICA & The Death Penalty's Big Tab

I no longer believe that you can fix the death penalty ... I learned that the death penalty throws millions of dollars down the drain -- money that I could be putting directly into crime fighting -- while dragging victims' families through a long and torturous process that only exacerbates their pain. - James Abbott, a 29-year veteran Republican police chief from Orange, New Jersey, who served on a New Jersey panel that recommended abolishment of capital punishment. (Source: The Columbus Dispatch)

The Death Penalty's Big Tab

| Wed Oct. 21, 2009 8:06 AM PDT
A new study from the Death Penalty Information Center, "Smart on Crime," reports that halting executions could save millions of dollars. This is no small consideration for cash-strapped state governments—especially if the large sums they spend aren't delivering greater public safety. The study reports that a national poll of police chiefs rate the death penalty at the bottom of their list of crime-fighting priorities: "The officers do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder, and they rate it as one of most inefficient uses of taxpayer dollars in fighting crime. Criminologists concur that the death penalty does not effectively reduce the number of murders."

Nationwide, death sentences have declined by 60 percent since 2000 and executions by nearly as much. Keeping 3,300 inmates on death row is very expensive, as are prosecutions seeking the death penalty because the legal process is so long and complex. In many instances, people sentenced to death end up sitting in prison for many years before ever getting close to facing execution—and some never reach that point at all. From the report:
 
California is spending an estimated $137 million per year on the death penalty and has not had an execution in three and a half years. Florida is spending approximately $51 million per year on the death penalty, amounting to a cost of $24 million for each execution it carries out. A recent study in Maryland found that the bill for the death penalty over a twenty-year period that produced five executions will be $186 million. Other states like New York and New Jersey spent well over $100 million on a system that produced no executions. Both recently abandoned the practice. This kind of wasteful expenditure makes little sense. The death penalty may serve some politicians as a rhetorical scare tactic, but it is not a wise use of scarce criminal justice funding.
In 2009, eleven state legislatures considered bills to end capital punishment and its high costs were part of these debates. New Mexico abolished the death penalty and the Connecticut legislature passed an abolition bill before the governor vetoed it. One house of the legislatures in Montana and Colorado voted to end the death penalty, and the Colorado bill would have directed the cost savings to solving cold cases. As the economic crisis continues, the trend of states reexamining the death penalty in light of its costs is expected to continue.

1 comment:

  1. 1) "BUT DID THEY LISTEN? THE NEW JERSEY DEATH PENALTY COMMISSION’S EXERCISE IN ABOLITIONISM: A REPLY", Robert Blecker, Rutgers Journal of Law and Public Policy, vol 5, Issue 1, Fall 2007, pdf pages 9-88, http://robertblecker.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/but-did-they-listen.pdf

    "The (New Jersey Death Penalty) Commission's final report consistently distorts the evidence, displays an anti-retributive bias, and worst of all, ignores basic well-established perspectives framing the great debate, avoiding at all costs the question of justice."

    "Unbalanced and biased, the Commission does not even consider any alternative to abolition or standing pat. This essay directly engages the Report on its findings re: Deterrence, Retribution, Costs, Evolving Standards of Decency, Disproportionality, Irreversible Mistake, and Life without Parole with restitution to the victims' families."

    "In sum, a commitment to justice and better informed public debate compels this counter-report."


    2) Statement of Kent Scheidegger, Legal Director, Criminal Justice Legal Foundation Before the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission, October 24, 2006
    http://www.cjlf.org/files/NJDPTestimony.pdf

    "So why doesn’t New Jersey have an effective death penalty? Thirty years of experience in 38 states has demonstrated one truth beyond question. You cannot have an effective death
    penalty in a state if your court of last resort is determined to block it and willing to twist the law to do so. Regrettably, that appears to be the case in New Jersey."

    ". . . nothing will achieve the goal (of an effective death penalty) unless you fix the New Jersey Supreme Court. We hear a lot about judicial independence. But the other, equally important side of that coin is judicial responsibility. Judges must use their power for its proper purpose of enforcing the Constitution and not for the improper purpose of imposing their policy preferences on the people of the state."


    3) "DEAD WRONG: NJ Death Penalty Study Commission", Dudley Sharp, 2007,
    http://homicidesurvivors.com/2010/04/11/dead-wrong-nj-death-penalty-study-commission.aspx

    "The New Jersey Death Penalty Commission made significant errors within their findings. The evidence, contrary to the Commissions findings, was so easy to obtain that it appears either willful ignorance or deception guided their report."

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