California spends $137 million per year on the death penalty and has not had an execution in almost four years, even as the state pays its employees in IOUs and releases inmates early to address overcrowding and budget shortfalls.
A report was released earlier this week by the Death Penalty Information Center. It concludes that states are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on the death penalty, draining state budgets during times of economic crisis when money could be used more effectively on other programs.
Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center and the report’s author:
“With many states spending millions to retain the death penalty, while seldom or never carrying out an execution, the death penalty is turning into a very expensive form of life without parole. At a time of budget shortfalls, the death penalty cannot be exempt from reevaluation alongside other wasteful government programs that no longer make sense.”
Police Chief James Abbott of West Orange, New Jersey, a Republican, has served 29 years on the police force and was a member of the state commission that recommended the death penalty be abolished.
“The death penalty is a colossal waste of money that would be better spent putting more cops on the street. New Jersey threw away $250 million on the death penalty over 25 years with nothing to show for it. The death penalty isn’t a deterrent whatsoever. New Jersey’s murder rate has dropped since the state got rid of the death penalty. If other states abolished the death penalty, law enforcement wouldn’t miss it and the cost savings could be used on more effective crime-fighting programs.”
According to the release, some of the key findings of the poll include:
- The death penalty was ranked last when the police chiefs were asked to name one area as “most important for reducing violent crime,” with only one percent listing it as the best way to reduce violence. The death penalty came in behind more police officers; reducing drug abuse; better economy and more jobs; longer prison sentences; and technological innovations such as improved laboratories and crime databases.
- The police chiefs ranked the death penalty as the least efficient use of taxpayers’ money. They rated expanded training and more equipment for police officers; hiring more police officers; community policing; more programs to control drug and alcohol abuse; and neighborhood watch programs as more efficient uses of taxpayers’ dollars.
- Almost 6 in 10 police chiefs (57%) agreed that the death penalty does little to prevent violent crimes because perpetrators rarely consider the consequences when engaged in violence. Although the police chiefs did not oppose the death penalty in principle, less than half (47%) would support it if a sentence of life without parole with mandatory restitution to the victim’s family were available.
Judy Kerr of Albany, California said:
“We need to stop wasting money on a broken death penalty and instead spend our limited resources on solving more homicides. My brother’s murder has remained unsolved for more than six years. The death penalty won’t bring my brother back or help to apprehend his murderer. We need to start investing in programs that will actually improve public safety and get more killers off the streets.”
The extra costs of the death penalty, beyond life sentences, are often $10 million per year per state. If a state spent that $10 million on hiring new police officers (or teachers) at $40,000 per year, it could afford to hire 250 additional workers.
In Florida, where the courts have lost 10 percent of their funding, the state spends $51 million dollars per year on the death penalty or $24 million for each execution.
Executions themselves are not expensive; it is the pursuit of the death penalty that carries a high price tag. The higher costs of the death penalty process — including the costs of higher security on death row — are unavoidable and likely to increase in light of all the mistakes that have been made in capital cases.
In 2009, 11 state legislatures (Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas and Washington) considered abolition bills. New Mexico abolished the death penalty and Maryland narrowed its application with costs as an issue in both states.
Both houses of the Connecticut legislature voted to end the death penalty and one house of the Montana and Colorado legislatures (where cost savings were to be allocated to solving cold cases) passed abolition bills. The trend of states reexamining the death penalty in light of the economic crisis is expected to continue.
Read “Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis.”
Commentary
This is a year that has seen billions cut from the budget including $15 billion to education. We have cut funding our universities to the point where tuition is rising tremendously, enrollment is falling, and faculty and staff are being forced to take furloughs. We have cut social services to the bone. But the most frustrating aspect of it all is that we have not made fundamental changes in how we run and fund government.
That means as soon as the economy improves, spending will go right back to where it was and the next recession we will go through this all over again. We are losing a chance at reform.
In August, a federal judicial panel ordered California to reduce its inmate population by roughly 27 percent, or 40,000, over two years. The courts have found that prison overcrowding is the main cause of negligent medical and mental health care. As a result, the legislature passed a watered down plan.
However, now that panel has rejected the plan because it failed to meet the terms of the earlier court order. The Governor has 21 days to submit a new plan and if it fails to submit an adequate one the court will develop its own plan.
This is but one example of the inability of the state to adequately address reform. The state needs to look into its mandatory sentencing laws, find ways to get non-violent offenders out of jail and into programs that will get them back into society as productive members, reform drug laws, and in general find a way to reduce the costs of prisons.
$137 million on a death penalty system that the state rarely uses might be a good start from a fiscal standpoint. While it is a drop in the bucket, there are simply better and more cost effective ways to fight crime.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Execution as a form of punishment, in today’s society particularly, has never been shown to be a deterrent to future crimes. First, most homicides are crimes of passion and are not calculated. People don’t think of consequences when they act passionately. None of us do. So, on that point alone killing a person for a crime of passion makes no sense.
A time-honored concept of punishment is that the punishment must be timely with the offense. When anywhere from 4 to a dozen years, or more, elapses before a convicted murderer is executed there is no association between the punishment and the crime. Only the family of the victim and the assailant, and the dozen lawyers, even remember the particulars of the crime.
Finally, when you note who really wants capital punishment you find very little said by law enforcement. They already know it is a futile means of deterrence. It’s the general public that fuels this social need, itself a crime of passion in my view.
Absolutely, the death penalty is a colossal distraction and a colossal waste of money for California. People have argued forever whether it is a deterrent in the short term. What really bothers me is the long-term message, that killing people is an important way to solve problems.
Death penalty advocates have found it counterintuitive and unnecessary for the death penalty to be expensive. On the contrary, it seems like a grave should be much cheaper than a prison cell. But fundamentally, the death penalty will always be an expensive imitation of despotic justice inside of a larger system of due process. The death penalty can only be cheap in a country like Libya, where the government doesn’t mind if death sentences and executions are sloppy.
Beyond all of the direct costs of the death penalty, it has a bad ripple effect on the rest of the justice system. It serves as a cover for life imprisonment, because that sentence then looks like a humane alternative. Life sentences are one trend that is really busting the state budget. California and the rest of the US have just gotten really careless about throwing away the key.
How bad is the Death Penalty Information Center?: A response to the DPIC’s “Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty”
Dudley Sharp, contact info below
-The DPIC cost reviews are, extremely, misleading.
1) For example, their highly inaccurate description of costs in North Carolina. The study actually shows that life without parole is considerably more expensive than the death penalty. (1) This is typical of DPIC and infects their entire report.
2) If relevant states wanted to improve death penalty efficiency, they would emulate Virginia: executions occur within 5-7 years, 65% of those sentenced to death have been executed and only 15% of their death penalty cases are overturned – a protocol that would be much less expensive than life without parole. (2) In a bad economy, most of us look at improving efficiency, the DPIC only looks at highly inefficient, irresponsible death penalty systems, or mischaracterize cost studies. Standard, for them.
– Likely, the police chiefs are unaware that there have been, at least, 16 recent studies, inclusive of their defenses, which have found for death penalty deterrence. All prospects of a negative outcome deter some. There is no exception. (3)
– The death penalty would be at the bottom of police chief’s violent crime priorities, as capital murders represent, thankfully and by far, the fewest of all violent crimes.
– The DPIC should have ask police chiefs if they believed the death penalty was appropriate for those who murder police. I bet about 90% do.
Dudley Sharp
e-mail sharpjfa@aol.com, 713-622-5491,
Houston, Texas
Mr. Sharp has appeared on ABC, BBC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, NBC, NPR, PBS , VOA and many other TV and radio networks, on such programs as Nightline, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, The O’Reilly Factor, etc., has been quoted in newspapers throughout the world and is a published author.
A former opponent of capital punishment, he has written and granted interviews about, testified on and debated the subject of the death penalty, extensively and internationally.
(1) Duke (North Carolina) Death Penalty Cost Study: Let’s be honest
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/06/duke-north-carolina-death-penalty-cost.html
(2) “Cost Savings: The Death Penalty”
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/05/07/cost-savings-the-death-penalty.aspx
(3) a) Articles on death penalty deterrence
http://www.cjlf.org/deathpenalty/DPDeterrence.htm
b) “Deterrence and the Death Penalty: A Reply to Radelet and Lacock”
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/02/deterrence-and-the-death-penalty-a-reply-to-radelet-and-lacock.aspx
c) “Death Penalty, Deterrence & Murder Rates: Let’s be clear”
http://prodpinnc.blogspot.com/2009/03/death-penalty-deterrence-murder-rates.html
d) “The Death Penalty: More Protection for Innocents”
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/07/05/the-death-penalty-more-protection-for-innocents.aspx
(4) The 130 (now 138) death row “innocents” scam
http://homicidesurvivors.com/2009/03/04/fact-checking-issues-on-innocence-and-the-death-penalty.aspx
It seems to me the situation makes a good sense for a fast and efficient
death penalty. It is the crazy system of multiple appeals that both increases
costs and decreases deterrence.
Beyond all of the direct costs of the death penalty, it has a bad ripple effect on the rest of the justice system. It serves as a cover for life imprisonment, because that sentence then looks like a humane alternative. Life sentences are one trend that is really busting the state budget. California and the rest of the US have just gotten really careless about throwing away the key.
So, Greg, you seem to be advocating against the death penalty and against lifetime imprisonment at the same time. If I understand your argument correctly, you are basing it on the high costs for both but also making a point that neither is humane. The too-high-cost argument is the new path being taken by death penalty opponents since the social empathy thing has not worked. I think to make a case based on costs alone; we would need to consider the cost to the victims and society in general for the capital crimes committed by death row or life prisoners.
The deterrent argument has always been a disingenuous one because there is no reliable way to measure the crimes not committed. Also, there is no effective way of measuring how much more crime would occur with more lenient sentencing. Remember, more violent crimes were reported in 1992 than ever before. This was the national crisis of the time… inner city violence was bad and the rate was growing. Clinton enacted policies that imposed tougher penalties and enforcement along with smart crime prevention measures. Combined with a robust economy from the tech-stock bubble days, it worked and crime rates have since fallen or stabilized in every state except DC.
However, let’s assume for the sake of argument that the death penalty is a neutral deterrent. There is still the matter of just punishment. If the costs for just punishment are too high, then we should be looking for ways to economize and not changing the punishment rules to fit the budget. Otherwise we need to get back to the “humane” argument and see if society has progressed or regressed (depending on your perspective) enough to eliminate the death penalty and agree to more lenient sentencing for murderers and rapists.
[i]If I understand your argument correctly, you are basing it on the high costs for both but also making a point that neither is humane.[/i]
Life without parole does not have to be inhumane in principle, and maybe the same is true of the death penalty. But certainly in practice, the death penalty is either too expensive and too unlikely to be useful, or it is a powerful drug that intoxicates the government and the public and becomes deeply inhumane. In practice, life without parole has also intoxicated the government and certain special interests; it is also applied far beyond any humane or cost-effective limits.
If these vast efforts at maximum punishment across the US were actually important, then you would think that a country like Canada must be gripped by criminal pandemonium. Canada has fewer than 1/6 as many prisoners per person as California. It does not have a death penalty and it makes much more sparing use of life without parole. Even for the hardest crimes such as murder and armed robbery, Canada acts with much more restraint. But in many ways, Canada is actually safer than the US average.
[i]There is still the matter of just punishment.[/i]
I agree that abstract justice is the real issue here. People want to see maximum sentences above all because they feel that the guilty deserve them. Practical public safety is a secondary consideration. That is the heart of the “victims’ rights” concept, that the victims have the right to see the guilty punished, regardless of whether the punishment is useful in any other way.
But that is also what is so dangerous and intoxicating for the government and the public. In other words, people want the government to play God, to make sure that bad people suffer just to make life fair. I don’t think that the government should play God. Once people that doing harm is an important moral goal for the government, there is no telling where it will stop. That is one reason that the US prison population has set so many records and looks so out of control compared to other civilized countries.
That is one reason that the US prison population has set so many records and looks so out of control compared to other civilized countries.
Yes, but there are many other reasons that the US prison population is so high. To summarize these, we could just say freedom has its costs.
Canada has fewer than 1/6 as many prisoners per person as California.
If you look at a state-by-state comparison of crime rates…
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/US_States_Rate_Ranking.html
…you will note that the least populated states generally have the lowest crime rates (very safe to live in North Dakota). Canada is very sparsely populated and this is the primary reason there is less crime per capita (not worth to rape, pillage and plunder when the victim lives hundreds of miles away). Also, Canada is not an easy place to travel around… there is that ice and snow thing that makes it difficult for bad people to do their business. Lastly, Canada has more liberal drug laws. Since somewhere close to 60% of all federal US prisoners are in for drug-related crime, just by liberalizing drug possession laws and letting go the non-violent drug users, we would clear our 35-40% of the inmates. Now this mass of drug-users released on the streets would certainly have a cost associated with it (as it does in Canada), but we are only talking prison costs.
You might consider comparing Mexico to the US when you are making a case for shorter prison sentences and no death penalty. It is possibly a better match than is Canada.
[i]you will note that the least populated states generally have the lowest crime rates (very safe to live in North Dakota).[/i]
“Generally”, that is, if they happen to be those states that have a low urban population. Otherwise whether or not the state has a lot of area doesn’t have anything to do with it.
The state with the lowest population density is Alaska. Its homicide rate in 2005 was 20th among the 50 states. The state with the highest population density is New Jersey. Its homicide rate in 2005 was 27th among the 50 states.
Is Canada more like Alaska, where most people live in the Anchorage area; or is it more like North Dakota, that doesn’t have any large cities? It’s more like Alaska, of course. Most Canadians live in large metropolitan areas such as Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Most Canadians do not live in scattered farm towns as most North Dakotans do.
But Canada has a much lower homicide rate than Alaska, and far fewer prisoners per capita. In fact, Canada also has significantly fewer prisoners per capita than North Dakota, which has the least imprisonment rate of any of the 50 states.
[i]there is that ice and snow thing that makes it difficult for bad people to do their business.[/i]
Unlike Alaska?
[i]Since somewhere close to 60% of all federal US prisoners are in for drug-related crime, just by liberalizing drug possession laws and letting go the non-violent drug users, we would clear our 35-40% of the inmates.[/i]
No, we wouldn’t, we would clear out only 35-40% of the [b]federal[/b] inmates. This discussion is about state inmates, not federal inmates.
Unlike Alaska?
Alaska appears to be an abnormality in the data. In general, the lower population states have lower crime rates. Canada has about one-tenth of the US population, but is roughly the same 3.8 million square miles in size. But, in general this argument about Canada being a safer place is bunk. The crime rates are really quite comparable between Canada and the US. The gap has been narrowing for some time (with US crime rates dropping faster than Canada’s crime rates). In terms of the prison population, most of it is explained by Canada’s much more lenient drug laws and sentencing.
Related to drug laws and sentencing, in the US a large percentage of the homicides are gang and drug-related. The US has a larger population of drug users, and therefore a larger drug market, and therefore more thugs working in the business. The violence and crime from the drug business skews our crime statistics. That is why I suggested using Mexico as a comparison instead of Canada.
Canada Density = 8.3 / sq mi
US Density = 80 / sq mi
Mexico Density = 142 / sq mi
Mexico is closer in population density and has more lenient sentencing and no death penalty, so why not use it for your comparison?
No, we wouldn’t, we would clear out only 35-40% of the federal inmates. This discussion is about state inmates, not federal inmates.
True, but I was using the numbers for illustration only. I think I read that California’s percent of prisoners incarcerated for drug-related crime meets or exceeds the federal metric. Maybe you can provide me a link if this is incorrect.
Mexico doesn’t make any sense as a comparison for the same reason that Afghanistan doesn’t make any sense as a comparison. According to the Human Development Index ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index[/url]), Mexico is not a developed country, even though it is more developed than Afghanistan (say). Everyone knows that Mexico has a dysfunctional and corrupt law enforcement system, and a hamstrung tax system ([url]http://ideas.repec.org/p/ays/ispwps/paper0112.html[/url]) that can’t pay for a large prison system whether or not they wanted one.
If you take the 38 countries rated with a “very high” human development index (at the above Wikipedia link), the United States has a much higher homicide rate ([url]http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/IHS-rates-05012009.pdf[/url]) than the 37 others, and it has by far the highest imprisonment rate. If high imprisonment is meant as a necessary evil to solve a problem, it doesn’t work.
If you want a specific comparison to California, Spain has about the same population density and weather as California, but it has far fewer homicides and far fewer prisoners.
I know the theory that the US has more crime because “freedom has its costs”. But if that is meant as a defense of high imprisonment, then it seems that a major cost of “freedom” is loss of freedom. Prison is as un-free as it gets.
[i]I think I read that California’s percent of prisoners incarcerated for drug-related crime meets or exceeds the federal metric. Maybe you can provide me a link if this is incorrect.[/i]
It certainly is incorrect, but it is very easy to think so because WAR ON DRUGS is to the standard Libertarian mental block when discussing prisons. For the truth, see for instance the chart on page two here ([url]http://www.ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=702[/url]). Fewer than 1/5 of California’s prisoners are in prison for drug crimes. So even if you released every drug convict from California’s prisons, it would still have vastly more prisoners per capita than Spain.
Mexico doesn’t make any sense as a comparison for the same reason that Afghanistan doesn’t make any sense as a comparison
That is a huge stretch in logic… Mexico compared to Afghanistan! Drive through the US areas with the highest crime rate and Mexico is a much better model for comparison. It is certainly much more accurate than using Canada as a model.
There is another problem with an argument that compares crime statistics to the number of prisoners. First, there are no standards and consistency for how crime statistics are collected and recorded country to country. For example, Spain has the highest number of robberies, but this is understated because getting mugged has become just part of living in Spain. Second, more prisoners generally means tougher laws and or less tolerance for laws being broken. This translates to higher crime statistics because of higher levels of law enforcement. You might not mind giving up your wallet every now and then, but most Americans will not tolerate it. The guy that gets caught doing it three times, goes to prison for a number of years.
I have to come back to what you seem to be proposing: more lenient sentencing and the abolition of the death penalty as a way to reduce crime in the US. Apparently we can go back and forth forever debating accurate models for comparison, but do you really think that this will reduce crime in the US? Or, do you think that increased crime is an acceptable price to pay for having fewer prisoners?
I too do not like the bad PR from having such a high percentage of people incarcerated. However, I think it is explained by:
– Our unique and massively free country (becoming less so every day) that is the magnet for opportunity (even lawless opportunity),
– Our rich ethnic diversity (more homogenous countries have less crime),
– Our low individual tolerance for impacts resulting from the individual behavior of others.
If not these things, I am very interested hearing what causes our high crime rates and large prison population… and what you expect or are willing to tolerate for lowerer our prison population.
[i]First, there are no standards and consistency for how crime statistics are collected and recorded country to country[/i]
That’s true, but a dead body is a relatively constant standard of crime. Once countries are developed enough to reliably count dead bodies, then the homicide rate is a reliable indicator of that type of crime. It is true that there are other kinds of crime that are interpreted and reported differently in different places.
[i]Our unique and massively free country[/i]
Again, I don’t see how you can go from “massively free” to swollen prisons. Prisons are the opposite of freedom.
[i]Our rich ethnic diversity[/i]
Unless that is meant as a euphemism for abolition of slavery, the US is not particularly more diverse than Canada or France, to give two examples.
[i]Our low individual tolerance for impacts resulting from the individual behavior of others.[/i]
On the contrary, the entire tough-on-crime agenda conflates [b]consistency[/b] of punishment with [b]severity[/b]. It is true that someone who commits homicide in the US is more likely to be sentenced to life in prison than someone in Spain. But an American who commits homicide is also more likely to get no punishment, because of the sentiment that his act of homicide wasn’t wrong. Although punishment in the US is severe, it isn’t consistent.
That is a key difference between the US and Western Europe: In the US, both public opinion and the law grant more often recognize “good” or “justified” reasons to kill people. For instance, there was a case in Texas ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Horn_shooting_controversy[/url]) in which a homeowner called 911 to report that two burglars had broken into his neighbors’ house. Not even into his own house. On the taped call, he vowed to shoot them. The 911 dispatcher begged him not to do it, but that is what he did, he shot and killed both of them within seconds after they walked onto his lawn. Now, so far that is something that could happen in Spain, say. What is unusual is that there was no criminal indictment. In Spain or in any Western European country, this would have been criminal manslaughter, but in Texas, it was legal.
If people are so eager to justify homicide in the US, then it is no surprise to also see more homicides that society would never justify. Because, people who commit homicide often feel fully justified in their own minds.
The same goes for Mexico. Just like Americans, Mexicans have a strong sense of street justice, even if on paper the Mexican government doesn’t particularly foster it.
Again, I don’t see how you can go from “massively free” to swollen prisons. Prisons are the opposite of freedom.
Maybe this isn’t ideological, but I think of this in terms of the left’s desire for front-facing social assistance and controls versus the right’s demand end-facing laws and enforcements. I think some on the left would prefer more front-facing controls and assistance that we all would be required to comply with (thereby reducing freedoms through more rules and increased taxation to fund the authority and assistance), and this would somehow level the economic playing field and create less “need?” for the lower socioeconomic individuals to turn toward crime. I think this is like saying that we need institutions to talk, hug and spend our way to lower crime.
A conservative libertarian view is that we don’t need to take care of so many, and don’t need so many front-facing controls… that we are all born with capabilities that can be exploited in a democratic free-market society… but we have laws and expect responsible behavior, and if you break laws and do not act responsibly you will be justly punished… but we need to do so efficiently and accurately. From the right view, the front-facing effort should be devoted to family values, a strong moral-compass (through peaceful spirituality, cultural norms and practical philosophy), quality education (note that the failures of public education may be the single biggest reason the US prison population is so high), and a robust economy that provides opportunities for jobs and a ladder to increasing prosperity. In essence, the massive freedom we enjoy is the ability to find our own way in a rich sea of opportunity, the corresponding cost is the need for us to be accountable and hold others accountable for finding the way.
Despite my more right-tilt, I am an objective guy and would welcome someone explaining to me how we can reduce the prison population and what consequences we should expect and tolerate.
[i]Despite my more right-tilt, I am an objective guy and would welcome someone explaining to me how we can reduce the prison population and what consequences we should expect and tolerate.[/i]
First of all, California is currently under court order to release almost 1/4 of its prisoners. It’s a great time for anyone to decide how to reduce the prison population, because we have to reduce them one way or another.
My advice is to stop conflating severity of punishment with consistency of punishment. Many punishments are so severe that they could not possibly be applied consistently — and again, the court order stands in the way of any expanded application. Recall the phrase, “the long arm of the law”. What the law has in America now is an arm weighed down with an iron fist. It is a long arm, when the government wants to use it. But it is also a tired arm, and girding the fist with even more iron won’t much help public safety.
As for education, family values, and the economy, those are all fine agendas, but you’ll never solve any problem if you always point to every other problem to solve first. Again, we’re under court order. If family values are the way to shrink California prisons by 40,000, let’s see it.