A comment on the costs of the death penalty. As a police chief, I find this use of state resources offensive... Give a law enforcement professional like me that $250 million, and I'll show you how to reduce crime. The death penalty isn't anywhere on my list. — James Abbott, Police Chief and former death penalty supporter,
Dunno who the chap is, and doesn’t sound like I want to read his story. Regardless, I’ll never support the death penalty.
I'm still in the punishment should fit the crime sometimes. My conscience is sometimes being challenged. God forbid anything happened to mine I'm not sure how I'd react. Time they say is a great healer. Some imo shouldn't be allowed to breathe the same air. Should those that ran the death camps have been allowed to live. They weren't in a bad state of mind at the time. Just pure evil.
Japan and South Korea possibly (although SK does not practice it, it is still in law). Both are clean, tidy with respect for the elderly. There are other issues though...
The cost of a trial on a case that can include the death penalty is significantly more expensive and significantly outweighs the cost to detain for life. You can read some info in the link below for some example costs. https://www.amnestyusa.org/issues/death-penalty/death-penalty-facts/death-penalty-cost/
Interesting I know the cost to detain a prisoner in the UK is over 48k a year so not including a trial and the fact that a cat A prisoner probably costs more than this to detain. If a bloke is given life at 30 and lives in jail till 70 that's just short of 2 million on keeping one person in prison not including trial etc. I'm not arguing for death penalty by the way just putting forward the cost on tax payers to keep people in jail and the fact the prisons are full to breaking point with a shortage of staff but that's another story.
According to Amnesty, in 2008 it cost $3 million for a single case that is given the death penalty in Maryland. With inflation that's probably closer to $5 million at this point.
Wow some courtcase that when in reality its only the sentancing that is different. wonder how much it costs for your average high end case which could warrant the death penalty for example Lee rigbys killers.
My understanding is that a lot of the cost is due to the fact that a lot of death penalty cases get appealed and there's significantly more discovery needed by the prosecution. Remember also that this is an average cost for cases with death penalty and they cost is higher whether the penalty is given or not. So in cases where life imprisonment is given in the end, you get the extremely high cost for the trial, along with the cost of life imprisonment.
I can't remember if it was from Amnesty or some other organization, but research showed that juries were more likely to acquit a defendant facing the death penalty than one facing life imprisonment - leading to more guilty people avoiding punishment completely. I'll leave this for anyone to watch. He puts it a lot better than I ever could.