I need numbers on executing someone

[davidinalameda]

versus slapping their ass away for life

I need to show a few freepers on another board that it's cheaper to lock them up for life than it is to execute them

[La_Serpiente]

1. Bingo

http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=cost

Republicans like to interpret things in Cost-Benefit Analysis.

[1a2b3c]

9. So we are going to make more than 87 billion in iraq?

[TexasMexican]

2. well...

if we wanted to I'm sure we could make the whole execution process (start to end) cheaper, but I dont think it something that we want to do.

That being said I think executions are a good thing.

I think it would be better if we executed all very violent criminals in our nations prisions, and then let out all of the non-violent drug dealers and addicts. Everyone else that is left, then we can work on rehabilitating them.

[alwynsw]

3. Not quoting any sources except my own observations

I once was a supervisor at Kentucky State Penitentiary. Based upon the actual budget of the institution, execution is by far the more cost effective route - if it is performed in a timely manner, as in BEFORE the person dies of old age. The cost of appeals, etc. is moot. Almost all inmatesmake a mission of filing appeals and motions on their convictions and other, usually frivilous, litigation. It helps pass the time and annoys the warden.

I liked the opinion of one convict that had been on death row before the '72 SCOTUS decision repealing the penalty, and is now serving life. His idea for dealing with gang bangers who kill innocents during drive-bys was fine with me. 30 days to get the trial over, 30 days for appeals, immediate execution on the 61st day - by public hanging in the heart of the shooter's gang neighborhood. Then let the body hang to ripen for a few days so that the other gang members could see that they're not quite so invincible as they think.

Callous? You bet! Cruel? Only to the innocents that must pass the body in their daily routines. Effective? Who knows? But, I'd wager that the drive-by rate would drop dramatically or the marksmanship would improve; greatly reducing the numbers of innocents killed in gang violence.

Yup. I'm pro death penalty.

[MrBenchley]

6. Ah yes...

Buildfing that bridge to the 12th century...how about putting their heads on pikes? How about the actual auto-da-fe?

[LARED]

11. auto-da-fe?

Well that would certainly bring down costs

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MrBenchley]

16. Gee, I'm not the one

gleefully pimping for the death penalty...nor for killing living thinngs for fun...

[LARED]

17. Gee MrBenchly

Try and stay on topic, will'ya. My comment was about your stated belief that hunters are psychos and lowlifes.

I guess in your mind that makes then open game for your witch-hunt. So rather than real discourse about these issues it is just easier to demonize them.

If you really believe that hunters are psychos and lowlifes, I must ask where is your compassion for these poor souls?

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Moderator]

20. Keep it Civil

This thread had been going nicely for such a hot button issue. Lets keep the discourse on topic and respectful.

Thanks
DU Moderator

[CO Liberal]

19. YOU Need to Stay On Topic As Well, Lared

This thread is about the death penalty.

[LARED]

22. You are right

When someone goes off topic I shoud ignore it even though the diversion / strawman states hunters like myself are psychos and lowlifes.

[MrBenchley]

21. I AM on topic

the topic is capital punishment, remember?

[CO Liberal]

4. Anyone In Particular, Dwickham?

:-)

[MrSandman]

5. Why is cost a factor?

If a citizen cannot use lethal force against one who is not an imminent threat to another's life or safety, how does one cede that right to the government?

Morality has little to do with cost. Expediency does.

[davidinalameda]

26. cost is important because

some people think in numbers rather than lives.

if you are in favor of the death penalty because it's a moral choice, then I approve of your belief, as if you need my approval, but anyway.

if you're in favor of it because it's cheaper, that's a bit disturbing. We're supposed to be a bit more civilized than that.

I don't understand why we even have the death penalty. There are some people who I believe should be thrown into the depths and never let out except for feet first. They have forfeited their right to live in society.

I have a big theory on how I think prisons should work, based on nothing more than what I've seen on TV.

I digress. Back to cost--criminals are people who broke the law. Are people just criminals who haven't broken the law? No.

I believe, however nievely, in the inate good in most people. I don't think that there is anyone in our society that we can just throw away.

[MrSandman]

27. Why not ask them

if they have the legal and moral authority to kill a person who is not a lethal threat.
If they believe they do, then they will be hard to convince.
If they do not believe this, what gives them the legal or moral authority to hire someone to kill?

For deterrence, the death penalty would have to be much more used and used swiftly to be effective. If then.


ed. for diction--S

[Wickerman]

7. Amnesty International

has had those numbers, too. It was the argument that first appealed to me.

[MrBenchley]

8. Try this...

"The exorbitant costs of capital punishment are actually making America less safe because badly needed financial and legal resources are being diverted from effective crime fighting strategies. Before the Los Angeles riots, for example, California had little money for innovations like community policing, but was managing to spend an extra $90 million per year on capital punishment. Texas, with over 300 people on death row, is spending an estimated $2.3 million per case, but its murder rate remains one of the highest in the country.
Over two-thirds of the states and the federal government have installed an exorbitantly expensive system of capital punishment which has been a failure by any measure of effectiveness. ...In Texas, a death penalty case costs taxpayers an average of $2.3 million, about three times the cost of imprisoning someone in a single cell at the highest security level for 40 years. In Florida, each execution is costing the state $3.2 million. In financially strapped California, one report estimated that the state could save $90 million each year by abolishing capital punishment. The New York Department of Correctional Services estimated that implementing the death penalty would cost the state about $118 million annually....

http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=385

"The most comprehensive study conducted in this country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of a non-death penalty system imposing a maximum sentence of imprisonment for life."

http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=7&did=258

"The death penalty in Texas is in a state of crisis. Numerous death penalty convictions have been tainted by overzealous prosecutions and the use of perjured testimony. State paid medical "experts" make unreliable predictions about defendants' future dangerousness while other doctors simply lie about tests they never performed. Six innocent people have been sentenced to death and later released since 1987. The race of the defendant and victim play a major part in which cases are selected for the death penalty. Legal representation of indigent defendants at trial is frequently incompetent, and representation for appeals is often non-existent. And the costs of the death penalty in Texas are in the hundreds of millions of dollars with no end in sight.
And yet, Texas has little to show for all this expense and the sacrifice of judicial due process. During the period when Texas rose to become the nation's leading death penalty state, its crime rate grew by 24% and its violent crime increased by 46%, much faster than the national average. Texas leads the country in numbers of its police officers killed and more Texans die from gunshot wounds than from car accidents. "

http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=489

Lots of other resources on that site...

[SlavesandBulldozers]

10. yeah, once they have you down to cost

youre done for. This is mainly because youre missing the whole point. If you are against the death penalty dont let them bring you into a fiscal debate, keep it in the arena of ethics. Inevitably, some people will try to use the ridiculous argument that hanging somebody or shocking somebody will reduce crime - but it doesn't - and the numbers clearly prove that.

I always liked the argument that to kill an convicted murderer is to let him off the hook, he needs to suffer for the rest of his life in a cell or take his life by his own hand. I say "he" but mean he/she.

[Muddleoftheroad]

13. Safety

It might not save money, it just saves lives.

Murderers have this lovely way of continuing their chosen profession -- even in prison. That means they remain a risk to guards, visitors, staff and other prisoners. Not to mention they remain a risk to escape.

[MrSandman]

23. Next time someone is arrested for

murder, maybe the perp should be shot, for safety's sake?

[Muddleoftheroad]

28. No, in America we give them about a decade to get out of it

[alwynsw]

25. Amen!

Been there, done that. It's chilling to learn that you're the target of an escape attempt that requires you being murdered in order to succeed.Luckily, the girlfriend of one of the inmatesi involved, who was to provide the getaway car, ratted them out.

[RoeBear]

14. I don't see the reason to debate...

...the cost of execution versus confinement. The death penalty is wrong and it's used far to often on blacks versus whites. Even if justice was truly blind it would still be wrong for the government to execute it's citizens.

[alwynsw]

24. It depends on where they're convicted

Annual incarceration costs for maximum security inmates range from 15K to 62K per year counting both state and Federal institutions. These numbers come from the ACA.

If you're in a low cost per inmate state, it's cheaper to imprison them for life - on the surface.

Costs not factored in are monies spent by the state or Federal institutions infighting frivilous lawsuits and answering the many appeals filed by inmates, as well as extoidinary medical expenses.

DO inmates file frivilous lawsuits? Yep. I remember one in particular. The inmate filed a suit claiming cruel and unusual punishment because his french fries in the dining hall were soggy. Another filed a suit because the inmate canteen didn't sell his brand of cigarettes. There are many more such as this out there.

IF you're curious about my personal authority on the subject, I was a supervisor at Kentucky State Penitentiary in a previous life.