Death sentence more expensive then life sentence?

Question

I've heard the due to legal fees involved in trying a death sentence case, plus the cost of execution, giving somebody the death sentence is actually more expensive then giving somebody life in jail. How true is this?

Answer 1

it's the other way around. It costs tax payers MILLIONS to keep one person in jail for a life sentence. The death penalty costs about 100k (little more).

Answer 2

A number of studies have all come to the same conclusion. It's not the execution, it's the legal process.



Almost all death penalty cases are poor people, meaning that the government funds BOTH sides of the case. Both prosecution and defense will have more lawyers, more time, both before, during, and after the trial. More expert witnesses are used by BOTH sides, all on the public tab.



You then add on the extra cost of the legally and morally required, protracted appeals process. The one study I remember specifics was in California, where a figure of $4-5 million per death penalty case was estimated.



This site has a number of studies listed:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty



PS: the person below has no idea what she is talking about.

Answer 3

According to a 1990 study, the total cost to build a maximum-security prison cell is $63,000, which breaks down to approximately $5,000 a year in principal and interest. The annual cost to maintain an inmate in this cell is approximately $20,000 a year. Together, these costs mean an annual expenditure of $25,000 to incarcerate an inmate. Based on a sentence term of 40 to 45 years, one inmate would cost the taxpayer only slightly more than $1 million—less than a third of what it would take to pay for the process that culminates in execution. A twenty-five-year-old woman convicted of first-degree murder would need to serve a life term to the age of 145 before the costs of incarcerating her would surpass those of executing her.

Answer 4

It may depend on the age of the criminal. If a person is fairly young and will be in jail a long time, that is very expensive. i would think that prison is more expensive than death. While everyone with death sentence has automatic appeal, most prisoners keep tryhing to appeal and go over and over. Therefore, the cost, i would think, would be more for life (if they serve life).

Answer 5

reliable question. various the others here have reliable solutions on the subject of dying row incarceration and criminal costs. that's authentic, and that's not even close - it costs far extra to execute a prisoner than to maintain him incarcerated for existence. The numbers selection by state, however the rationalization in the back of the disparity is that the government should be as specific as achievable that it does not execute an harmless guy or woman. in the direction of that end, plenty extra is spent on pre-trial training (maximum DP situations take a pair of three hundred and sixty 5 days again to trial), extra pre-trial motions, extra expert witnesses (on the two facets), extra criminal specialists (additionally on the two facets), jury sequestration, protection (mandatory as a results of fact of extra exposure in DP trials), one extra sentencing trial, dying row incarceration (far extra costly than primary maximum protection) and an exhaustive appeals technique. This disparity turns into even extra suitable once you communicate approximately the time cost of money. a large form of the extra costs of capital punishment are up-front, happening in the previous and with the aid of the trial itself, while a large form of the fees of existence imprisonment are unfold over the term of incarceration. Any first-3 hundred and sixty 5 days finance student (or lottery expert) can attest that a greenback up-front is plenty extra burdensome than a greenback unfold over 30-40 years. some think of the severe fee of capital punishment is why violent crime costs are larger in dying penalty jurisdictions - each extra suitable greenback spent on capital punishment is one that's not going to police, instruction, drug scientific care centers, women individuals’s shelters, and different government courses that help cut back crime. regardless of all of those costly precautions in place, harmless human beings nonetheless get sentenced to dying fantastically oftentimes. for the reason that 1973 interior the U.S., 139 human beings have been released from dying row as a results of fact they have been exonerated by DNA and different data. those are all people who have been got here across responsible “previous a existence like doubt.” regrettably, DNA data isn't available in maximum situations. So, as long as a results of fact the dying penalty is in place, you're fantastically plenty absolute to sometimes execute an harmless guy or woman. Many could argue it extremely is the utmost fee of all.

Answer 6

Its expensive both ways our News Paper published that it takes 5000 to 7000 dollars a month to keep up one inmate. that's more than I make in 6 months pretty sad.