NCJ Number
142912
Date Published
1992
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the costs of capital punishment concludes that it is far more expensive than its closest alternative, life imprisonment without parole, and that expenditures related to capital punishment are diverting financial and legal resources from effective crime control strategies.
Abstract
Capital punishment is not receiving the decisive cost- benefit analysis being applied to every other program in times of budget austerity. Thus, before the Los Angeles riots, California had little money for innovations like community policing, but was spending an extra $90 million per year on capital punishment. Similarly, Texas spends an estimated $2.3 million per death sentence, but its murder. Capital punishment is being discussed in terms of extreme political rhetoric rather than as a single, costly alternative in a spectrum of approaches to crime. Several factors influence its costs. Capital trials are longer and more expensive at every step than other murder trials, even before the appeals process begins. Guilty pleas almost never occur in these cases. In addition, many of these trials result in life sentences, so the government pays the cost of life imprisonment in addition to the expensive trial. A single capital trial can mean tax increases and near bankruptcy in counties responsible for both the prosecution and defense in these cases. Nevertheless, politicians choose symbol instead of substance in supporting the death penalty. Therefore, it is time for politicians and the public to give this costly punishment a critical examination. Illustration and 78 references