Joey Arbuckle Mr. Lealos English II, 2 17 September 2015 Capital Punishment Only 13 of 800 total prisoners sentenced to the death penalty in California have been . The amount of money spent keeping these prisoners on death row for all these years is over $4 billion (End the death penalty in California 2012). From having the death penalty, California has been wasting tax-payer’s money on repeal and living costs. California should abolish the death penalty because the prisoners cost too much and it does not deter criminals. The death penalty costs too much in California due to the high price of appeals for prisoners and executions. Prisoners on death row “A 2011 study led by Arthur L. Alarcn... found that the state system has cost $4 billion …show more content…
Very few criminals really get deterred by the death penalty. A Bristol prison chaplain says that, “...out of 167 condemned criminals whom he had interviewed, only three had not witnessed an execution” (Weil 2013). The criminals sentenced to death row were not deterred by the death penalty, even though almost all of them have witnessed a hanging. Capital punishment is not an effective way to deter criminals, since the prospect of spending one’s entire life behind bars sounds even worse. The criminals who think they can get away with their crimes, also think that they will not be executed if convicted. The way to stop people from committing horrific acts is to not say how bad the punishment will be, but to have a more effective police force laying down the …show more content…
Using the taxpayer’s money to keep a prisoner in a special system is not good for anyone. The death penalty is not good at deterring criminals, unlike having life in prison. California should change their death penalty system to cut the billions of dollars going to keep prisoners on death row. Works Cited “End the death penalty in California.” New York Times 5 Nov. 2012: A28(L). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 17 Sept. 2015. . Slattery, Gram. “Death penalty: ruling in California finds long delays ‘cruel and unusual.’” Christian Science Monitor 17 July 2014. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 22 Sept. 2015. . Weil, Jack. “The Death Penalty Does Not Deter Crime.” The Death Penalty. Ed. Jenny Cromie and Lynn M. Zott. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from “The Death Penalty Isn’t the Answer to Crime Woes.” Star 4 Nov. 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 22 Sept. 2015.
If you want a person to stop doing crimes. You can give him the fear of executing
While many opponents argue the economics of the issue, they fail to acknowledge that the main goals of punishment are to correct behavior that is deviant from the law and to prevent similar incidences from occurring. Without capital punishment, the culprits would not have to confront the potential of death, meaning that the marginal cost of violent crime would be diminished. Therefore, capital punishment is an effective method to deter
Case 1: Nightstalker Introduction: Richard Ramirez was well known in California as the nightstalker, an appropriate nickname due to his 13 counts of murders, 5 attempted murders and 11 sexual assaults. Ramirez was sentenced to death row in 1989 and remained there for 23 years until B-cell lymphoma took his life. I believe California should not have sentenced Richard Ramirez to the death penalty under the condition that he remains in prison for the remainder of his life. This course of action is morally justified because no matter the extent of the crime the risk of executing innocent people and cost of the process is not worth the outcome. My position is a better option than the alternative of being sentenced to the death penalty because my
Many innocent lives are taken due to the death penalty which are often the direct result of bias and discrimination. Needless to say, the death penalty is a poor and definitive response that cannot be undone. Combating this matter requires government intervention, and entails prohibiting the death
“The 1989 execution of Ted Bundy cost Florida taxpayers an estimated $5 million” (Executing Prisoners). The death penalty opens many doors for appealing and often results in delaying the execution and costing the state a lot of money. The death penalty is an expensive process but for some criminals, like Ted Bundy, it is
“‘Death sentences represent less than one-tenth of 1% of prison sentences in the United States…,’” (Von Drehle, 9). Furthermore, death row is just a small fraction of the criminal justice system and can not be based on that alone. For instance, what many don't take into account is the justice systems allows for many states, such as the populous state of New York, to ban the death penalty. (state laws, p1)
Although Texas is the state with the greatest number of death row sentences and executions, it has one of the highest crime rates in the entire nation. Therefore, the death penalty is ineffective because it does not diminish the incidence of crimes, take the life of innocent people, is racially unequal, costly, and alternative measure can be implemented
The deterrence theory suggests that “the severity of criminal sanctions dissuades other potential offenders from committing crimes out of fear of punishment. ”4 That is applicable to the individuals that are punished and to people in the community. Nevertheless, prison’s effectiveness is often questioned as an effective deterrent to crime. Studies have shown that longer sentences have a small effect on whether offenders commit crimes or not, and the National Academy of Sciences determined that “insufficient evidence exists to justify predicating policy choices on the general assumption that harsher punishments yield measurable deterrent effects.
The government is going broke! Just because of the death penalty system (created by the government) is so remarkably procrastinating, irreconcilable, and inefficient. Voters are beginning to despise the death penalty because it now costs a substantial amount of money to execute a killer rather locking the inmate up forever. Recently The Economist stated in the newspaper, “In Maryland, for example, it cost three times more—until last year, when the state abolished capital punishment. Governor Martin O’Malley cited the cost as one reason for pressing for abolition.”
The death penalty is and has been one of the most controversial topics debated in the United States since its birth in the seventeenth century. Dating back to colonial times, the death penalty was influenced by European settlers who brought capital punishment with them to the new world. Similar to today’s laws regarding the death penalty, the laws for capital punishment varied from colony to colony (“Introduction to the Death Penalty”). Slowly, most states in the country have eliminated this cruel practice, however, in some states the death penalty persists. Florida is one of thirty-one states where the death penalty still exists (“States with and without the Death Penalty”).
The death penalty should no longer be used sentenced due to the costly expenses, its ineffective use as a deterrent to crime, and its immorality. Tax payers pay an average of $900,000 per year to
The death penalty is not reducing the crime rate in the United States. “Almost all police chiefs surveyed ranked the death penalty last among their priorities for crime fighting, saying they did not believe-based on murder rates-that it deterred homicides,” (“Life Imprisonment is
Death penalty is like the ‘’tooth for a tooth – eye for an eye’’ theory. Instead of acting inhuman to our fellow beings we should find a better way to solve the mind of criminals. Making the problem vanish is not a good idea. We should do psychological researching instead! I, myself have a lot of faith in humanity.
The major reason why the death penalty should be abolished is that the cost of the death penalty is too much and the USA is in debt to many other countries. What this means is that the death penalty should be abolished and also the cost death penalty is more than the cost of maximum sentence life in prison. According to J. Marceau and H. Whitson, “The Cost of Colorado’s Death penalty,” 3 Univ. of Denver Criminal Law Review “A new study of the cost of the death penalty in Colorado revealed that capital proceedings require six times more days in court and
Absence of Death Penalty is synonymous to crime rate increase. It is estimated 2,000,000 people in the United States are victims of crimes from assault to murder. These criminals within these cases find loop holes to get out of the Death Penalty, and only get a 10 year sentences. And for that reason that is why people think there should be a Death Penalty. On New Year’s Day, 2009, Oscar Grant was shot in the back by Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, California, after a fight broke out on the BART station.