Cost-effectiveness of death penalty versus life sentences

¶ … Enforce the Death Penalty for Murders Over a Life Sentence

Cover Letter

This paper addresses the question: Is it more cost effective to enforce the death penalty for murders over a life sentence? Several topics will be covered such as why it could be cost effective and why it has not been cost effective. Several articles point to the need for prisons to carry out death penalties in order for death penalty sentencing to be cost effective. The introduction will highlight why the death penalty has been regulated more so than enforced.

Other articles will also show how death penalty sentencing can be used a means of creating persuasive plea bargains as criminals do not want to experience death row. Another article states how expensive maintenance of death row inmates are vs. inmates who received life sentences. It also shows how many inmates were killed on death row vs. The ones that were not. Shockingly, very few executions occurred on death row in the state of California. In fact, most of the prisoners on death row died of old age or other circumstances before they were executed.

Introduction/Problem Statement

Many times people have pondered over whether or not it was necessary to kill criminals that have committed heinous crimes. In fact some even question if the death penalty is at all useful in delivering justice. However, another problem arises that comes from enforcement of the death penalty. The problem is cost. Many times people wonder if death row inmates cost more to keep than criminals with a life sentence.

If one closely examines the fact surrounding the death penalty, not many people sentenced to death get killed. Many end up dying before they are executed. In essence, death row inmates are like life sentence inmates, except the cost of keeping someone on death row has shown to be just as, if not more costly than, criminals receiving a life sentence. What are the origins of the death penalty in the United States? Why has the death penalty become life in prison?

Purpose Statement/Body of the Proposal

The death penalty is meant to cut the costs of prisons in terms of maintaining prisoners. Inmates require daily food, clothing, bathroom facilities, and some form of entertainment. However the death penalty system appears to not be cutting down the costs. "California's death-penalty system cost the state's taxpayers $4 billion more than a system that has LWOP as its most severe penalty" (Alarcon & Mitchell, 2012, p. 221). LWOP or life without parole is a typical sentence given instead of the death penalty. It would stand to be illogical that the death penalty system would cost more than LWOP. The reason it costs more is simply because death row inmates are not being executed in a timely fashion or at all.

…to maintain the current system will cost Californins an additional $5 billion to $7 billion between now and 2050. In that time, roughly 740 more inmates will be added to death row, an additional fourteen executions will be carried out, and more than five hundred death-row inmates will die of old age or other causes before the state executes them (Alarcon & Mitchell, 2012, p. 221).

Instead of prisoners meeting their fates in a sensible time frame of around 1-5 years, they most of the time never get executed. Not to mention people will often fight for an alternative to the death penalty once convicted. Since they have the time to fight the decision, sometimes the convictions get overturned or never carried out. Ideally the death penalty is meant to be a solution to dealing with heinous criminals who have repeatedly raped and killed others. But instead, it is being used in ways it was not originally intended to.

"Given its severity, the death penalty may play a unique role in plea bargaining, unlike that of a lesser maximum sentence of life without parole, which involves the defendant's loss of his freedom but not the loss of his life" (Ehrhard-Dietzel, 2012, p. 89). Discussions with defense attorneys and prosecutors within a state where the maximum penalty for murder is execution and a state where the maximum sentence for homicide is life without parole are analyzed in order to discover the part death penalty plays as influence in plea bargaining, as likened to the part of a maximum verdict of life without parole. The article by Ehrhard-Dietzel suggests prosecutors are not automatically persuaded to charge capital homicide in order to encourage a guilty plea, assumed deliberations including morals and monetary cost, reflections that are principally lacking from resolution making in cases where the maximum potential sentence is life without parole.

Another article by Liebman & Clarke also reveal a number of expenses the capitally disposed to minority enforces on the majority of populaces and locales that are not in need of the death penalty, together with more crime, a burdensome process for revising methodically inconsistent death sentences whose implementation is of less attentiveness to the death sentences' instigators than their imprisonment. Furthermore, there is inconsistency deterrent methods and high occurrence of re-incarceration regardless of existence of death penalty or not. Studies of changes in, "police presence, whether achieved by changes in police numbers or in their strategic deployment, consistently find evidence of deterrent effects. Studies of the deterrent effect of increases in already long prison sentences find at most a modest deterrent effect" (Nagin, 2013, p. 83).

That is why in order to avoid problems in regards to implementation and verdict execution, research must be applied to certain areas. Four high-priority areas for upcoming research was identified by Nagin: "developing and testing an integrated model of the effects of the threat and experience of punishment, measuring perceptions of sanction regimes, developing and testing a theory of criminal opportunities, and estimating the deterrent effect of shorter prison sentences and identifying high-deterrence policies" (Nagin, 2013, p. 83). Researching these areas will not only help with actual management of prisoners within the prison system, but also help deal with the ongoing problem of over population in prisons. This coupled with the problem of the death penalty leads to a final analysis of cost effecitiveness in relation to death penalty or life sentence.

In actuality the way death penalty sentences are carried out, or not carried out, it is becomes more expensive than traditional life in prison sentences. So therefore it would make more sense to enforce actual death penalties quickly rather than leave prisoners in death row for the rest of their lives to actually provide some sort of cost effective solution. Instead of using the death penalty to generate easier and fast convictions thanks to plea bargains, it would make more sense and cost less money to implement ways to either not provide the choice of the death penalty, or execute death row inmates faster.

Seeing prisoners die in a timely manner will not only deter criminals from committing crimes that would put them in a position to receive the death penalty, but would also allow for the prosecution to make more tempting plea bargains. Few people want to and are okay with dying. If the death penalty is seen as being something serious, instead of another life without parole, it will definitely act a deterrent as well as bring the costs of prison maintenance down.

Prisons are reaching overpopulation throughout the country. It needs to be resolved. The death penalty either needs to be removed as it has been shown to be ineffective or it has to be effectively implemented. If it is removed, it will eliminate the extra costs of death row. If it is properly enforced it will remove costly prisoners.

Conclusion

The death penalty is touted by some as a cost effective solution to prison overpopulation and less expensive than maintaining a prisoner serving a life sentence, especially those with no option for parole. However, there are many problems surrounding implementation of death penalty sentences. First, the death penalties sentences are rarely carried out. As California has shown, only fourteen executions are handled within the span of several years.

Second, death penalties are often used as leverage for getting plea bargains. With death penalties so loosely thrown and used by the Court system, it is no wonder people see it as a waste and something regarded as ineffectual. Lastly, the death penalty has been regulated more than implemented. People see now that the death penalty is something used to control the prison population in terms of overstuffing prisons vs. actually removing prisoners.

With all that said, in theory the death theory, if it were well implemented, would be cost effective. However, because of the long history of ineffectual carry out, the death penalty has created an even bigger financial burden than life without parole sentences. It has also not served its other purpose as a deterrent. Criminal activity still exists in high rates and people are still re-committing crimes, regardless of possible punishment.

In order for anything to be resolved in terms of the death penalty, changes must be made. Certain areas need to be research to understand why death penalty sentences are not being executed and why criminals are re-committing crimes. If the death penalty is promptly executed when criminals are sentenced, than it can stand to be a cost effective solution to prison overpopulation over life sentencing. If it remains the same, it will simply cost more. If it ends up overpopulating the prisons simply because of lack of action and precarious sentencing, it will result in lesser quality prisons for lesser criminals and possible safety issues for both guards and prisoners alike.