I hope you find this of interest.
From: Dudley Sharp, independent researcher, death penalty expert, former opponent, 832-439-2113, CV at bottom
Cost Savings: The Death Penalty
Dudley Sharp, contact info below
Reasonable and responsible protocols, currently in use, will produce a death penalty which costs no more, or will cost less, than Life Without Parole (LWOP).
States could better implement justice, as given by jurors, and save taxpayers money, currently wasted by irresponsible state systems.
1) Obvious solution: Improve the system
Virginia executes in 5-7 years. 65% of those sentenced to death have been executed. Only 15% of their death penalty cases are overturned. The national averages are 11 years, 14% and 36%, respectively.
With the high costs of long term imprisonment, a true life sentence will be more expensive than such a death penalty protocol.
2) Current cost study problems
a) Geriatric care: Most, if not all, cost studies exclude geriatric care, recently found to be $60,000-$90,000/inmate/yr., a significant omission from life sentence costs. Prisoners are often found to be geriatric at relatively young ages, 50-55, because of lifestyle.
b) Plea Bargain to life: ONLY the presence of the death penalty allows for a plea bargain to a maximum life sentence. Such plea cost benefit, estimated at $300,000 to $1 million/case, accrues as a cost benefit/credit to the death penalty. I am aware of no study which includes this. They all must, for a relevant cost analysis.
c) The cost of death row: There need not be any additional cost for death row. Missouri and Kansas don't have one.
NOTE: Depending upon jurisdiction, the inclusion of only 2a and 2b will result in a minimal cost differential between the two sanctions or an actual net cost benefit to the death penalty.
Adding (1) would, very likely, mean that all death penalty jurisdictions would see a cost savings with the death penalty as compared to a true life sentence.
3) The Disinformation problem: The pure deception in some cost "studies" is overt.
a) Some studies compare the cost of a death penalty case, including pre trial, trial, appeals and incarceration, to only the cost of incarceration for 40 years, excluding all trial costs and appeals, and geriatric care for a life sentence. The much cited, highly misleading Texas "study" does this.
b) It has been claimed that it costs $3.2 million/execution in Florida. That "study" decided to add the cost of the entire death penalty system in Florida ($57 million), which included all of the death penalty cases and dividing that number by only the number of executions (18). It is the same as stating that the cost of LWOP is $15 million/case, based upon all costs of 2000 LWOP cases being placed into the 40 lifers to have died (given an average cost of $300, 000/LWOP case, so far, for those 2000 cases.). The much cited and misused Duke University death penalty cost analysis for North Carolina does the same thing.
c) Many of the "studies", such as Maryland's (2008), suffer from similar or worse problems.
4) Deterrence "value": FCC economist Dr. Paul Zimmerman finds that executions result in a huge cost benefit to society. "Specifically, it is estimated that each state execution deters somewhere between 3 and 25 murders per year (14 being the average). Assuming that the value of human life is approximately $5 million {i.e. the average of the range estimates provided by Viscussi (1993)}, our estimates imply that society avoids losing approximately $70 million per year on average at the current rate of execution all else equal." The study used state level data from 1978 to 1997 for all 50 states (excluding Washington D.C.). (1)
That is a cost benefit of $70 million per execution. 15 additional recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, support the deterrent effect.
No cost study has included such calculations.
Although many will find it inappropriate to put a dollar value on life, evidently this is not uncommon for economists, insurers, etc.
The death penalty provides greater protections for innocents than life sentences. (2).
What value do you put on the lives saved? Certainly not less than $5 million.
5) Justice: The main reason sentences are given is because jurors find that it is the most just punishment available. No state, concerned with justice, will base a decision on cost, alone. If they did, all cases would be plea bargained and every crime would have a probation option.
======================================
MANY ADDITIONAL STATE COST REVIEWS
DEATH PENALTY COST: SAVING MONEY
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2013/02/death-penalty-cost-saving-money.html
=======================================
1) "State Executions, Deterrence and the Incidence of Murder", Paul R. Zimmerman (zimmy@att.net), March 3. 2003, Social Science Research Network, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID354680_code021216500.pdf?abstractid=354680
2) "The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents"
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/01/30/the-death-penalty-provides-more-protection-for-innocents---new-mexico.aspx
copyright 2003-2013 Dudley Sharp
Permission for distribution of this document, in whole or in part, is approved with proper attribution.
======
600+ pro death penalty quotes from murder victim's families &
3300+ from some of the greatest thinkers in history
======
Victim Services
Victims' Voices
======
Additional research, w/sources, w/fact checking/vetting & critical thinking, as required of everyone.
The Death Penalty: Justice & Saving More Innocents
and
Students, Academics & Journalists: Death Penalty Research
======
Partial CV
