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Economics of the Death Penalty

Hornburger

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I am curious and too lazy to research this on my own lol.

Which costs more, the death penalty or life in prison, and why does this method cost more?

It would make more sense to me that the answer would be life in prison because the state would have to care for the prisoner for their whooole lives, which adds up to quite a few bucks, but when I talked to some people on DP they thought the death penalty costs more because of all the legal fees from appeals and such involved. What do you think?

Thanks for your help!
 
Hornburger said:
I am curious and too lazy to research this on my own lol.

Which costs more, the death penalty or life in prison, and why does this method cost more?

It would make more sense to me that the answer would be life in prison because the state would have to care for the prisoner for their whooole lives, which adds up to quite a few bucks, but when I talked to some people on DP they thought the death penalty costs more because of all the legal fees from appeals and such involved. What do you think?

Thanks for your help!

I have heard that the Death Penalty costs more too, though I have not researched the facts on my own. So I can't say for sure if that is really true or not.
 
Just type in "cost of death penalty vs life in prison" in google.com

You get alot of stuff and most of its points the DP being more expensive than life in prison (because of appeals, yes) and that capital punishment is not an effective deterrent to crime.
 
Death Penalty cost more money because of all the appeals. Personally I think the prisoner should only have one appeal before he/she dies. If you don't include the cost of an appeal life in prison costs more money.
 
TimmyBoy said:
I have heard that the Death Penalty costs more too, though I have not researched the facts on my own. So I can't say for sure if that is really true or not.

If the death penalty costs more its because of the lengthly time appeals take over 20 years in some cases.........If you cut down the appeal time to say 2 years it would be much cheaper to execute.......
 
Navy Pride said:
If the death penalty costs more its because of the lengthly time appeals take over 20 years in some cases.........If you cut down the appeal time to say 2 years it would be much cheaper to execute.......

Doesn't the length of time correspond to how quickly the appeals can be heard (i.e. once the last appeal is denied, a date is set)? If you put a time limit on appeals, wouldn't you be subverting the justice system? I could also see this causing a greater rift between wealthy and poor convicts, where the wealthy ones could buy there full set of appeals, and the poor one would get pushed aside. "Sorry, you weren't important enough to get your appeals heard. Time to die."
 
jhawk said:
Doesn't the length of time correspond to how quickly the appeals can be heard (i.e. once the last appeal is denied, a date is set)? If you put a time limit on appeals, wouldn't you be subverting the justice system? I could also see this causing a greater rift between wealthy and poor convicts, where the wealthy ones could buy there full set of appeals, and the poor one would get pushed aside. "Sorry, you weren't important enough to get your appeals heard. Time to die."

It would be federal law.....Rich or poor would not matter......It is ridiculous that a scum like Tookie Williams was on death row for 26 years...

Its been a year since that scum Scott Peterson was sentenced to death but unless the laws change and you are 60 or over you will never get to see this animals sentence carried out......
 
Hornburger said:
I am curious and too lazy to research this on my own lol.

Which costs more, the death penalty or life in prison, and why does this method cost more?

It would make more sense to me that the answer would be life in prison because the state would have to care for the prisoner for their whooole lives, which adds up to quite a few bucks, but when I talked to some people on DP they thought the death penalty costs more because of all the legal fees from appeals and such involved. What do you think?

Thanks for your help!

It all depends an what sources you want to use.

Prisons are being over crowed,so new prisons have to be built.http://www.sumeria.net/politics/IIB.html
Quote:
On average, it costs $20,000 per year to maintain one prisoner, $100,000 to build a single prison cell, and $20,000 per year to staff a prison cell.

If these numbers are correct and someone serves a life sentence of 45 year and the time value of money is not taken into account the overall cost per lifer is $1,800,000 .



http://www.debatepolitics.com/showpost.php?p=158619&postcount=64

$2,912,445.24 to execute someone 2005
This one goes further than 2005.
.http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html

So if I stick your ass behind bars for 45 years, lets see what the gradual cost would be verse executing convicting you right now and executing you in ten years.
$40,000 for the year 2005 to house one inmate
$40,800.00 for the year 2006
$41,697.60 for the year 2007
$42,614.94 for the year 2008
$43,552.47 for the year 2009
$44,510.63 for the year 2010
$45,489.86 for the year 2011
$46,490.64 for the year 2012
$47,513.43 for the year 2013
$48,558.73 for the year 2014
$49,627.02 for the year 2015
$51,115.83 for the year 2016
$52,649.30 for the year 2017
$54,228.78 for the year 2018
$55,855.65 for the year 2019
$57,531.32 for the year 2020
$59,257.26 for the year 2021
$61,034.97 for the year 2022
$62,866.02 for the year 2023
$64,752.00 for the year 2024
$66,694.56 for the year 2025
$68,695.40 for the year 2026
$70,756.26 for the year 2027
$72,878.95 for the year 2028
$75,065.32 for the year 2029
$77,317.28 for the year 2030
$79,636.80 for the year 2031
$82,025.90 for the year 2032
$84,486.68 for the year 2033
$87,021.28 for the year 2034
$89,631.92 for the year 2035
$92,320.88 for the year 2036
$95,090.50 for the year 2037
$97,943.22 for the year 2038
$100,881.52 for the year 2039
$103,907.96 for the year 2040
$107,025.20 for the year 2041
$110,235.96 for the year 2042
$113,543.03 for the year 2043
$116,949.33 for the year 2044
$120,457.81 for the year 2045
$124,071.54 for the year 2046
$127,793.69 for the year 2047
$131,627.50 for the year 2048
$135,576.32 for the year 2049
$139,643.61 for the year 2050

$3503074.70 rough estimate for total cost between 2005 and 2050 for housing a lifer.


Either you look at the shrot term cost or the long term cost.
 
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i think it won't cost 500$ to exterminate someone including everything such as burying fees.
 
skg said:
i think it won't cost 500$ to exterminate someone including everything such as burying fees.

Most of the extra money isn't the cost of executing them, it's the cost of their legal appeals before the execution.

Which are Constitutionally and morally necessary-- there is a difference between formal justice and frontier justice, and in the former we take every possible chance to minimize errors.
 
Navy Pride said:
If the death penalty costs more its because of the lengthly time appeals take over 20 years in some cases.........If you cut down the appeal time to say 2 years it would be much cheaper to execute.......

Agreed 100%

I don't think cost should be the decision maker in what action to take..I had a debate in class where this girl used cost as her defense to keep someone in jail for life..I asked her why should cost matter?? and she stumbled after that.
 
But when you think about it, if life in prison is so much more punishing than the death penality, why arent prisoners appealing life sentences as much? What im saying is, why arent they asking to die as opposed to life?

Thats the main point of all anti-capital punishment people. That life in prison is actually worse. Wouldnt you see allot more lifers begging for death if this truly was the case. ****, wouldnt you see allot more suicide in prisons?

Or are free people basing these beliefs upon what they THINK is worse, rather than what they KNOW...

And if appeals were allowed for lifers,would the cost of imprisonment be that much more than the death penalty?
 
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Goldenboy219 said:
But when you think about it, if life in prison is so much more punishing than the death penality, why arent prisoners appealing life sentences as much? What im saying is, why arent they asking to die as opposed to life?

Thats the main point of all anti-capital punishment people. That life in prison is actually worse. Wouldnt you see allot more lifers begging for death if this truly was the case. ****, wouldnt you see allot more suicide in prisons?

Or are free people basing these beliefs upon what they THINK is worse, rather than what they KNOW...

And if appeals were allowed for lifers,would the cost of imprisonment be that much more than the death penalty?

I think life in prison is the easy way out. They are allowed to watch t.v., play sports, communicate with others, etc. They don't have their rights but I think they are given too much freedom in prison for the particular crimes they have committed. If prison was just a black hole for life, with horrible food, then hell ya i'd be all for it.
 
Goldenboy219 said:
But when you think about it, if life in prison is so much more punishing than the death penality, why arent prisoners appealing life sentences as much? What im saying is, why arent they asking to die as opposed to life?

because people are less sympathetic to people in prison for life, than people on death row.

Goldenboy219 said:
Thats the main point of all anti-capital punishment people. That life in prison is actually worse. Wouldnt you see allot more lifers begging for death if this truly was the case. ****, wouldnt you see allot more suicide in prisons?

Or are free people basing these beliefs upon what they THINK is worse, rather than what they KNOW...

And if appeals were allowed for lifers,would the cost of imprisonment be that much more than the death penalty?

the rate of succesful suicides in prison are estimated at being about twice that of the rest of the population, and commiting suicide in prison isnt easy because as soon as you indicate having suicidal thoughts, you are put under close supervision.
 
You begged my question.

Why arent potential lifers asking for the death penality as opposed to life? Or trying to appeal life sentences to get the death penality. A courts sympothy based on giving a death order as opposed to taking away a persons freedom has nothing to do with the prisoner. Therefore has no place in this particular conversation.

What i am talking about is the prisoner. The question is: Does the whole group of life sentence prisoners attempt attempt suicide more than the group not facing life sentences.

The rate is twice as sucessful for lifers as opposed to regular inmates? Really? That is such a suprise.:roll:

You would think someone would really be motivated to kill themselves in such a no hope situation as a life sentence. As opposed to being motivated to kill yourself while serving an 8-10 year sentence.

A persons sucess rate for suicide for a particular group of prisoners, in this case life sentence detainees, shows only this group to have greater motivation. This does not show a great % of "lifers" attempting to die, as opposed the general population.

Now, if this particular group as a whole, has a significiantly higher rate of attepts as opposed to prisoners not serving life sentences, then one can come to the logical conclusion: prisoners given life sentences would rather die, than face life in jail.

Yet, because there seems to be no statistical information backing up this theory, this is not only an invalid argument, but it is also unsound.
 
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