11-04-2004, 09:06 AM
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#16 |
| Mraz-a-licious
Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Iowa City @ U of I
Posts: 6,875
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Quote: Originally posted by Duffyboy
25 Years to life rakes the Prison service well over hundreds of thousands, if not millions per person a year.
10 years death row is far cheaper. | I did a debate on this a few years ago and no, it's not chaper for execution. "A 1991 study of the Texas criminal justice system estimated the cost of appealing capital murder at $2,316,655. In contrast, the cost of housing a prisoner in a Texas maximum security prison single cell for 40 years is estimated at $750,000." (Punishment and the Death Penalty, edited by Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum 1995 p.109 ) "Florida calculated that each execution there costs some $3.18 million. If incarceration is estimated to cost $17000/year, a comparable statistic for life in prison of 40 years would be $680,000."
(The Geography of Execution... The Capital Punishment Quagmire in America, Keith Harries and Derral Cheatwood 1997 p.6)
And lastly... From this; the cost of keeping a 25-year-old inmate for 50 years at present amounts to $805,000. Assuming 75 years as an average life span, the $805,000 figure would be the cost of life in prison. So roughly it's costing us $2 million more to execute someone than it would cost to keep them in jail for life. This is just the dollar cost, the externalities will be discussed in a moment.
Source: http://rds.yahoo.com/S=2766679/K=cap...rter/econ.html |
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