I realize I’m in GQ, not GD, so I’m going to try to keep the scope of the question pretty narrow. I was watching a recent episode of The Colbert Report, in which he stated that it costs 10x more to execute a prisoner than to keep them in jail for life. I’ve heard similar things before. My question – is this true? And, if so, what are the drivers of the increased cost? Is it mostly the legal fees involved in fighting appeals?
Thanks!
It usually takes a decade or two (or three) to finally execute someone. Much of that time is spent waiting on appeals, and further appeals, and then special filings to request new appeals because of a flaw in the previous appeal, etc. I presume in each case, a team of lawyers paid by the state, spend weeks on writing briefs to address the motions, then there are full court hearings, and so on. Considering what lawyers cost, it’s probably cheaper to put the prisoner up in a 4-star hotel for life than to ay for all those legal bills. If it means a full repeat of the trial or anything like that - even more bills.
I assume most death-row inmates are destitute (or they are after the first trial). To avoid claims of unfairness for lack of legal representation, I assume the state pays for their legal bills during all these appeals too.
But vengeance is priceless and very sweet.
In the state where I live the governor recently put a moratorium on executions citing that very reason: that after all the appeals and everything else executions actually end up costing the state more than keeping a criminal in jail for life does. That surprised me to read that but since I feel like I should take my governor at his word then I guess it is so, yes.
Putting them up on a 4-star hotel for life is also probably cheaper than keeping them alive in jail for life. Running jails am expensive. According to various items where I’ve seen this mentioned, the security requirements in a jail are a major part of this.
Especially with Oklahoma-style executions. //rolleyes//
Of course with death row, you have the legal bills, plus the premium rate for incarceration; since these guys are in extra-special lockdown from what I understand, not wandering around with the rest of the prison population. (Hey, you’re going to fry sooner or later, what’s a few shivs in the ribs to people who piss you off? Or guards?)
Compared to the hell he put his victim through, I would say “yes it was!”.
I investigated this once, and if you go to my blog (in my signature) and choose “The Death Penalty” from the Table of Contents you’ll be able to find my cites, but here’s the financial breakdown:
An inmate costs roughly $55 to keep in jail, every day. So if someone is jail for the rest of their life, it will cost us about $1.2 million.
The average death penalty case costs about $1.5 million more to prosecute than an average murder case, so even if the person was summarily put to death immediately following the trial, you still would have spent more than jailing them for the rest of their days.
Besides this, death penalty candidates file a large number of appeals (perhaps as much as 16X more than a regular life-sentence prisoner), each costing 150% of a regular appeal. It looks like I wasn’t able to get exact numbers, but presumably this adds a few more million dollars to the issue.
And at the end of all of this, at least 75% are converted to lower sentence and 7% are let free entirely.
I wouldn’t say that all of these costs are necessary or reasonable, but by modern day, the blockades on the path to a successful execution are so large that it doesn’t make sense from either a deterrent nor a financial viewpoint to prosecute death penalty cases. The only ones which do take place, and which seem to even be legal to prosecute, are ones which arouse sufficient public outrage - so really that’s what the extra cost seems to be going for (in the modern day), to satisfy the public’s need for blood.
Moderator Note
Omar Little, your posts are out of place for General Questions. If you want to debate the value of the death penalty, take it to Great Debates or the Pit. Knock it off here.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
What about suicide watch? It seems to me I’ve heard that death row inmates have to be watched 24/7 to make sure they don’t try to kill themselves.