The Cost of the Death Penalty
The cost of capital punishment is also something people don’t really take in to consideration. In 1989, there was a man in Florida named Ted Bundy who had confessed to 28 murders in four different states. He was sentenced to death row and was finally executed by the electric chair. This one criminal, one guy, and one execution cost tax payers more than 5 million dollars. It doesn’t make sense for that one death sentence, using the death penalty methods, costing millions of dollars and the government still wants to keep using it. First of all, it is not fair for the people’s money they use to help the government pay is being used for killing away a human being. This money is there to be used to make our country a better and more secure society. We live in a country where 70 percent of the population is in favor of the death penalty, but it doesn’t make economic sense for the government to waste millions of dollars on one death sentence. This country is in debt and retaining the death penalty where a single execution cost 5 million dollars is not helping us stable our government’s debt. (Shirelle Phelps, Et Al. , 2005)
Peoples tax money should not be going to killing off people even if they are murderers, rapists, and terrorists, that’s why we have jails and yes jails require a lot of money but at least it holds and keeps hundreds and thousands of prisoners not just one. In an article a study that was done in 1990, (Shirelle Phelps, Et Al. , 2005), showed that the total of keeping a prisoner for life costs less than an execution. It costs $63,000 dollars to build a max security prison cell. The cost to keep a criminal in the cell is$20,000 dollars a year, and to lock up a criminal in a cell is $25,000 dollars. This one inmate can serve up to 45 years and it will cost about 1 million dollars, which is according to the study in the article, one third of the total to execute an inmate. An example, a person that is 25 years old that is charged with murder would need to be in prison until their about 145 years old to reach the costs of execution if they were to use the death penalty. This method still requires around $1 million dollars but it is more justifiable because the inmate does not need to be killed, they can be held until they die in the cells cause of age or are released but higher class criminals can stay in a prison to avoid danger to the law and people.
If we were to get rid of the death penalty there will be enough money to use to make national security prisons stronger and capable of having inmates for a longer amount of time. The money that is needed to execute a single criminal can be used to put several dangerous criminals in jail for the rest of their lives. This to me makes most sense and nobody has to kill another person and it would make much more sense to use millions of taxpayer dollars to make prisons more secure and have more resources for top security than waste millions on killing one single criminal.
Peoples tax money should not be going to killing off people even if they are murderers, rapists, and terrorists, that’s why we have jails and yes jails require a lot of money but at least it holds and keeps hundreds and thousands of prisoners not just one. In an article a study that was done in 1990, (Shirelle Phelps, Et Al. , 2005), showed that the total of keeping a prisoner for life costs less than an execution. It costs $63,000 dollars to build a max security prison cell. The cost to keep a criminal in the cell is$20,000 dollars a year, and to lock up a criminal in a cell is $25,000 dollars. This one inmate can serve up to 45 years and it will cost about 1 million dollars, which is according to the study in the article, one third of the total to execute an inmate. An example, a person that is 25 years old that is charged with murder would need to be in prison until their about 145 years old to reach the costs of execution if they were to use the death penalty. This method still requires around $1 million dollars but it is more justifiable because the inmate does not need to be killed, they can be held until they die in the cells cause of age or are released but higher class criminals can stay in a prison to avoid danger to the law and people.
If we were to get rid of the death penalty there will be enough money to use to make national security prisons stronger and capable of having inmates for a longer amount of time. The money that is needed to execute a single criminal can be used to put several dangerous criminals in jail for the rest of their lives. This to me makes most sense and nobody has to kill another person and it would make much more sense to use millions of taxpayer dollars to make prisons more secure and have more resources for top security than waste millions on killing one single criminal.