Can US States Afford the Death Penalty?
Economic Downturn Will Strain States' Abiliity to Execute Prisoners
Oct 26, 2009
The costs of prosecuting and defending a capital case, the subsequent appeals, housing an inmate on death row and carrying out the death sentence have always been one of the arguments in favour of abolishing capital punishment. But, as the current economic downturn continues in the United States, the cost of capital punishment is taking on a more prominent role in whether governments should be taking the lives of citizens who have been convicted of serious crimes. And support for its abolition is coming from some unlikely sources.
A New Study on the Costs of Capital Punishment
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), an anti death penalty organization based in Washington D.C. has recently released a report entitled: Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis. The report sets out the costs, from arrest to execution and argues that the costs of the process would be put to better use in other areas of the criminal justice system.
The Costs of Capital Cases
The cost involved is not just the money spent on carrying out executions. Capital trials are more expensive to conduct than others with more money spent on such things as expert witnesses and more experienced prosecutors. And there are inevitably more appeals, some of which are automatic than there are in non-capital cases. As well it costs more money to house a prisoner in a solitary cell on death row than it does in the general population of even the most maximum security institution.
Most of these costs are incurred after a person is charged with a capital offence, even if that person is never executed. Some criminal defendants are acquitted at trial. Of those who are convicted a very few have their sentences commuted. Still others are exonerated while awaiting execution because of newly revealed evidence such as DNA that conclusively proves they are innocent.
More significantly, because of the length of time between sentencing and the carrying out of the death sentence, many prisoners die in jail from natural or other causes before their sentences can be carried out.
In order to calculate the true cost of capital punishment, it is necessary to divide the total cost that is spent by the state on all capital cases by the number of inmates that are actually put to death. When examined in this light the costs are significant.
California: An Extreme Example
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, former prosecutor and Attorney General of California, John Van de Kamp states that as of June, 2009, there were 678 people on death row in the state. During the past 30 years, the number of convicts that California has actually put to death is 13.
According to Van de Kamp, the state spends $125 million more a year on capital cases and to keep prisoners on death row than if California had no death penalty. It costs the state about $90,000 more a year to house an inmate on death row than it does in the general population of a prison.
California is one state that is in a particularly precarious position financially. The state’s budget crisis has seen the government pay its bills by issuing IOU’s and social programs such as shelters cut back drastically. Van de Kamp and DPIC both argue that monies spent on capital crimes would be better spent on such things as putting more police on the streets and enacting better crime prevention methods.
While California is an extreme example because its financial situation is worse than most states and because it leads the United States in the number of people on death row, other states are spending a lot of money to carry out very few executions. Maryland, for example, spent $186 million on capital cases between 1978 and 1999. The state put 5 people to death during this time at a cost of $37 million per execution.
Police Chiefs Rank Capital Punishment a Low Priority
The DPIC report contains a national poll of police chiefs. Contrary to what might be expected, the chiefs of police gave capital punishment a low priority when it came to spending in the criminal justice system. Only 1% of the poll’s respondents thought that putting more people to death should be the top priority in fighting violent crime.
Capital punishment came last in the steps that should be taken to reduce serious crime while putting more police officers on the street ranked first. And capital punishment was the last priority listed by the police chiefs when it came to the question of the most efficient use of taxpayers’ money to reduce violent crime.
Of all of the pro and con arguments about the death penalty, the financial cost of prosecuting and carrying out the sentences has gained in importance during these bad economic times.
