Why Is Death Penalty Wrong

Death Penalty

Annually the U.S government wastes an additional 261 million dollars having criminals on death row. It is said that the death penalty deters crime and helps to prevent further heinous crimes such as murder. I can see this because you would assume people would think about the repercussions before they commit a crime. However this is completely wrong and has no statical evidence to back it up rather statistics to oppose it. The death penalty needs to be abolished because of the cost, wrongful deaths and ineffectiveness.

The cost to house a prisoner is much less than carrying out the death penalty. In the United States because of the appeals and different things the a criminal spends a long time on death row before ebbing executed

costing more money. “It is estimated that a capital case resulting in execution costs $3-4 million, whereas the typical cost of keeping someone in prison is $30-35,000 a year or less than a million dollars for a typical life sentence.” (The pros and cons of the death penalty in the USA). This is a large factor because the more tax money that can be conserved the better. We want to spend as little of money on criminals as possible. Each prisoner on death row is also more expensive then general population criminals. "Maintaining each death row prisoner costs taxpayers $90,000 more per year than a prisoner in general population.”(Costs of the Death Penalty). In California alone there are 714 inmates of death row, costing an extra 64,260,000 dollars in one sole state. More amazingly country wide it costs a whooping 261,180,000 dollars more. If the United states as a whole decided to finally put the death penalty to an end there is a large amount of money to be saved and something better than money can go to.
Innocent people can be wrongly put to death.

Since the death penalty has been put in there has been numerous cases where innocent people have been put to death, including Claude Jones. “ The tests revealed that a strand of hair found at the scene of a liquor-store shooting did not belong to Claude Jones, as was originally implied by the prosecution.  Instead, the hair belonged to the victim.  Jones was executed for the murder of the store's owner. The strand of hair was the only piece of physical evidence that placed Jones at the scene of the crime, and this revelation raises the question of whether Texas executed the wrong person for the murder.” (Executed But Possibly Innocent). Cases like this one in specific show the negatives of the death penalty. If there was no death penalty they wouldn't have rushed to execute him on false information and this DNA mix-up would've come to light while he was still in prison. But instead of him walking free an innocent man was put to death. Another example of a miscarriage of justice is in the case of Cameron Willingham who was executed in 2004 for an alleged 1992 arson and triple murder. ”Arson expert Gerald Hurst said, "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire." Former Louisiana State University fire instructor Kendall Ryland added, "[It] made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation.... They executed this guy and they've just got no idea - at least not scientifically - if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set.” (Executed But Possibly Innocent). Willingham was put to death on little to no evidence that there was even a crime committed let alone that it was him that did it. He was put to death despite multiple experts saying it wasn't even an arson fire. Even a single wrong death by the U.S. government isn't acceptable and there are many proven to be wrongful convictions that no death penalty could've

prevented.
The main debate for the the death penalty is that it deters crime, however, there is no statistical proof of that. Almost all of the top criminologist in the United States do not believe in the death penalties effect. “A recent study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology reported that 88% of the country’s top criminologists surveyed do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to homicide.  Eighty-seven percent of them think that the abolition of the death penalty would not have a significant effect on murder rates” (Facts about Deterrence and the Death Penalty). These are the people that know the most about crime and they don't believe in the death penalty at all. They are confident enough that it had no effect n deterring crime that they can say if the penalty was taken away it wouldn't change murder rates at all. The statistical proof actually leans more towards the death penalty not deterring at all. "The South, which carries out over 80% of the executions in the U. S., has the highest murder rate of the four regions.” (Facts about Deterrence and the Death Penalty). Statistically this completely disproves any way for the death penalty to deter crime. In the region where there is the most executions that should be the region with the lowest murder rate for it to deter crime but it has the exact opposite, the highest murder rate. After disproving the biggest claim for the death penalty and having it proven we don't need it, people can agree its time for a change in the justice system.
The death penalty needs to be abolished because of the cost, wrongful deaths and ineffectiveness.