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Death penalty arguments
Arguments for and against the death penalty
Arguments supporting the Death Penalty
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To choose between life in prison or death should be an easy decision for a court judging a murderer of many, however this is not the case. Although simple at a first glance, there are many outlying factors that can influence one’s decision between life and death. When someone is sentenced to the death penalty a large amount of taxpayer’s money is used to pay for the execution. According to a study at Seattle University, “Washington has carried out five executions since reinstatement, implying a cost of $24 million per execution.” ( www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-deathpenalty, in the Washington section ) This amount of money used to fund an execution can be lessened by giving a convict life in prison. Those sentenced to life in prison with no parole are given the worst living conditions with no chance of seeing the outside world beyond the prison walls due to them being labeled as dead men …show more content…
Family and friends of the victims may have to deal with the loss of a loved one and would want a sense of justice to be enforced. The end decision can give the family members some relief as well as a yearning for the criminal to suffer. Each sentence can bring the families peace of mind, however they each serve different roles in doing so. One family may want the criminal to experience a similar death that their loved one had received. The death penalty would fit this situation best since the family can watch as the criminal is executed if they choose to do so. There is then the situation where the family wants the criminal to suffer for the rest of their life. The perfect sentence for this is life in jail since the criminal will be stuck surrounded by maximum security for the rest of their life. Knowing that the criminal will be unale to cause harm to anyone else as well making sure they will suffer in prison will provide these families with the justice they feel is
The death penalty is much more expensive than life without parole because the Constitution requires a long and complex judicial process for capital cases. If the death penalty was replaced with a sentence of Life Without the Possibility of Parole, which costs millions less and also ensures that the public is protected while eliminating the risk of an mistake, the money saved could be spent on programs that actually improve the communities in which we live. Scientific studies have consistently failed to demonstrate that executions deter people from committing crime anymore than long prison sentences. Moreover, states without the death penalty have much lower murder rates. The South accounts for 80% of US executions and has the highest regional murder rate (Death Penalty
Notwithstanding issues of morality, the death penalty process of California is financially inefficient and ineffective. At the current rate of executions, “it would take 1,600 years to execute everybody on death row.” [The Death of the American Death Penalty, 122] The average delay in implementing a death sentence calculates out to be 25 years, at an added cost of $90,000 per year over normal incarceration. [Guy, 2] This is a “premium that currently totals more than $60 million a year” [Guy, 2]. When you take the added costs of death row incarceration and total them up with the additional costs of prosecution and the handling of the many legal appeals death row inmates are entitled to, the unnecessary amount of spending is significant. We could eliminate “$126 million a year” in additional costs by simply sentencing death row inmates to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. [Guy, 2] Because of the afo...
Upon examination, one finds capital punishment to be economically weak and deficient. A common misconception of the death penalty is that the cost to execute a convicted criminal is cheaper than to place a convict in prison for life without parole. Due to the United States judicial system, the process of appeals, which is inevitable with cases involving death as the sentence, incurs an extreme cost and is very time consuming. The cost of a capital trial and execution can be two to six times greater than the amount of money needed to house and feed a prisoner for life. "Studies show incarceration costs roughly $20,000 per inmate per year ($800,000 if a person lives 40 years in prison). Research also shows a death-penalty ease costs roughly $2 million per execution," (Kaplan 2). Capital punishment is extremely expensive and depletes state governments of money that could be used for a wide range of programs that are beneficial. As Belolyn Wiliams-Harold, an author for the journal Black Enterprise, writes that county governments are typically responsible for the costs of prosecution and the costs of the criminal trial, including attorney's fees, and salaries for the members of the courtroom. All this money is spent at the expense of the corrections department and crime prevention programs, which are already is strapped for cash (Williams-Harlod 1). These "financial constraints," such as capital punishment, do not promote a healthy, commercial society, but actually cost and harm the public.
The death penalty is a fair criminal punishment but too many people it is not lawful or right. The United States spends on average 39 million dollars a year on prisoners. One reason for this is the cost of the punishment. In Indiana the average capital case resulting in the death penalty is over $449,987 while the average cost for life without parole is $42,658. This is resulting in a 38 percent greater total cost of life without parole. Age is a tremendous factor in determining the death penalty, if the person is under 18 the death penalty is forbidden in all states. (“Death
Our criminal justice system's use of the death penalty appears increasingly void of rationale when we consider the other prices we pay. Executions take up to fifteen years or longer (Walker 1994, 106).
Secondly, in my eyes it is one of the only fair punishments allowed by the judicial system. Personally, I think that the murderer should suffer the exact fate that their victim did. Some people might say to give the murderer life in prison. This is hardly a punishment at all. Today, due to overcrowding in prisons, a lot of prisoners don’t serve their full sentence. Would you want one of these convicts to be a murderer? I can honestly tell you, "no, I wouldn’t." Another thing about today’s prisons is that the prisoners get free meals, clothes, bed, electricity, air conditioning and heating, cable and many other luxuries that make it a comfortable place to live if you get used to the people.
On the other hand, family victims often call for the death penalty because their sibling/child had no right to die in the hands of a murderer. Since this person took their life, the family should have the right to lawfully take the murder’s life. Life in prison is not always enough for them because they have an opportunity to leave on parole, and the thought of these murderous monsters being released into society again horrifies these families, thus they call for execution.
Many people, including some higher educated people, tend to believe that executing someone is a lot cheaper than the alternative, which is life in prison without the possibility of parole. Indeed, this thought seems like common sense. However, extensive research has been conducted that contradicts that belief. For instance, a study conducted in Maryland, in 2008, found that the state spends roughly 1.9 million dollars more per capital case, compared to non-capital cases (Warden, 2009). But how can this be some may ask. Well, the reason capital punishment costs more than life without the possibility of parole, is because death penalty cases are longer and more expensive. Because the capital punishment is an irreversible sentence, the state, or government, is required to heighten the defendant’s due process in order to decrease the chance of the defendant being innocent (DPIC). Furthermore, not only is it more expensive for the trial phase, it is also a higher price for a state to imprison death row inmates compared to other
It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, on the assumption that life imprisonment is more expensive than execution. If one takes into account all the relevant costs, however, just the reverse is true. "The death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment."56 A murder trial normally takes much longer when the death penalty is at issue than when it is not. Litigation costs -- including the time of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court reporters, and the high costs of briefs -- are mostly borne by the taxpayer. A 1982 study showed that were the death penalty to be reintroduced in New York, the cost of the capital trial alone would be more than double the cost of a life term in prison.57
“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice,” stated Desmond Tutu. In 2011, studies found out that in the state of California, they’ve spent over four billion dollars on capital punishments since 1978. Trials that can result in the death penalty are 20 times more expensive on tax payers than those that can’t. The death penalty should be abolished world-wide. There are plenty of reasons that the death penalty should be outlawed. Cost, wrongful convictions and executions of innocent people, and the suffering of the accused are the main reasons (EJUSA, n.d.).
The goals of punishment that are most important in this case are retribution, individual deterrence and rehabilitation. Retribution would be one of the goals, since a person died through the fault of another and getting justice or vengeance could be an important factor for family and friends of the victim. Individual deterrence is an important goal for this case since the offender needs to be prevented from committing similar crimes. Lastly rehabilitation could be an important factor in order to rehabilitate the offender and make them less dangerous to other individuals for the chance of their release. The best sentence that would serve these goals is incarceration. Through incarceration of this individual some sort of retribution would be achieved and it would deter the individual from further crimes. Further depending on the programs offered the individual could move towards rehabilitation.
"Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it 's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive." A quote by John Grisham that perfectly depicts the conflict associated with capital punishment. Ask anyone what their opinion is regarding the death sentence and you will surely be bombarded with passionate beliefs and convictions on both sides of the debate. What exactly are the pros and cons that come with condemning criminals to die? I will examine deterrence, the costs associated with life in prison versus death row, and how often the wrongly convicted are sentenced to death.
There are always two sides to every issue and capital punishment or life imprisonment is no different. This has been a very controversial issue for decades and still is today. Capital Punishment also known as the death penalty is defined as being the penalty of death for a crime. Some feel that capital punishment should be abolished because it is cruel; others believe life in prison is just as cruel. There are many reasons for the support of Capital Punishment and for Life in Prison.
“The cost includes the investigation costs, cost of processing evidence, substantial lawyer fees, amount of trials, number of extensive appeals, substantial security costs and the incarceration cost.” Therefore, life imprisonment should be used because it is cheaper and a worse form of punishment. Life in prison is a worse punshinment because the prisoners guilt and memories will haunt them until they die in prison. The death penalty would only put the prisoner out of his or her misery and they would never suffer from the crime they committed. Another disadvantage is the possibility of sentencing innocent men and women to death. There have been over 130 prisoners released from death row in American because they were proven
If a criminal is sentenced to life in jail, then the cost of their imprisonment would be many times this. In the USA, the average cost per prisoner annually in jail is $29,000. The cost of the drugs used for the lethal injection is believed to be $86.08. This is far less than the cost of keeping a prisoner in jail, and would save the government money that could be used to try and make the community a better and safer place. Secondly, many believe that capital punishment is right because of the justice given to the victim’s family.