Why should the taxpayers have to bear the cost of incarcerating someone for the rest of their life? Isn’t it cheaper just to put someone to death?
Not at all. In fact, taxpayers are getting stuck with a much greater tab to pay for a death penalty system that is irreparably broken. Study after study has found that death sentences cost up to 10 times as much as just locking someone up for life and throwing away the key. For example, over the past ten years the State of New York has spent in the neighborhood of $200 million on a system that hasn’t executed anyone. A study in Tennessee found death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment. In its review of death penalty expenses, the State of Kansas concluded that capital cases are 70% more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases. The most comprehensive death penalty cost study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million more per execution than a non-death penalty murder case with a sentence of life imprisonment. The experience in New Jersey has been similar. A 20
Related Questions
- Why should the taxpayers have to bear the cost of incarcerating someone for the rest of their life? Isn’t it cheaper just to put someone to death?
- Workers’ wages seem low, but isn’t that because the cost of living is so much cheaper in garment-producing countries?
- What is cheaper: death penalty or life in prison?
