Sure, capital punishment is fun for the whole family, but can we afford it? Ask your local police chief

"As many states face further deficits, it is an appropriate time to consider whether maintaining the costly death penalty is being smart on crime."

"The death penalty may serve some politicians as a rhetorical scare tactic, but it is not a wise use of scarce criminal justice funding."

-- from the Executive Summary of the report "Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis,"
from the Death Penalty Information Center

by Ken

Earlier this week the Death Penalty Information Center issued a report, "Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis," which "combines an analysis of the costs of the death penalty with a newly released national poll of police chiefs who put capital punishment at the bottom of their law enforcement priorities."

The report's conclusions -- that the death penalty is ineffective as a crime-fighting tool and runs up huge costs for very little criminal-justice return -- are summarized in the Executive Summary (links to PDFs of the Executive Summary, the full report, and a DPIC press release can be found on the DPIC website):

The death penalty in the U.S. is an enormously expensive and wasteful program with no clear benefits. All of the studies on the cost of capital punishment conclude it is much more expensive than a system with life sentences as the maximum penalty. In a time of painful cutbacks, states are pouring money into a system that results in a declining number of death sentences and executions that are almost exclusively carried out in just one area of the country. As many states face further deficits, it is an appropriate time to consider whether maintaining the costly death penalty is being smart on crime.

The nation's police chiefs rank the death penalty last in their priorities for effective crime reduction. The officers do not believe the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder, and they rate it as one of the most inefficient uses of taxpayer dollars in fighting crime. Criminologists concur that the death penalty does not effectively reduce the number of murders.

Around the country, death sentences have declined 60% since 2000 and executions have declined almost as much. Yet maintaining a system with 3,300 people on death row and supporting new prosecutions for death sentences that will likely never be carried out is becoming increasingly expensive and harder to justify. The money spent to preserve this failing system could be directed to effective programs that make society safer.

California is spending an estimated $137 million per year on the death penalty and has not had an execution in three and a half years. Florida is spending approximately $51 million per year on the death penalty, amounting to a cast of $24 million for each execution it carries out. A recent study in Maryland found that the bill for the death penalty over a twenty-year period that produced five executions will be $186 million. Other states like New York and New Jersey sent well over $100 million on a system that produced no executions. Both recently abandoned the practice. This kind of wasteful expenditure makes little sense. The death penalty may serve some politicians as a rhetorical scare tactic, but it is not a wise use of scarce criminal justice funding.

In the press release (and the full report, of course) you'll find the poll resulsts along with all sorts of quotes from police chiefs and officers stating their low regard for the death penalty as a crime-fighting tool and its exorbitant expense. The website also contains a running blog of anti-death-penalty updates, including an interesting one -- in response to the new report -- from former Texas Gov. Mark White, which references the hullabaloo we've talked about over his state's execution of a convicted murderer without allowing time to explore credible scientific evidence that the man was in fact innocent, a screw-up that dim-bulb Gov. Rick Perry has been using all his limited wits to try to cover up:

NEW VOICES: Former Texas Governor Now Expresses Doubts About Death Penalty

Mark White, a former governor of Texas and strong supporter of the death penalty, recently expressed serious reservations about the practice in Texas. "There is a very strong case to be made for a review of our death penalty statutes and even look at the possibility of having life without parole so we don’t look up one day and determine that we as the State of Texas have executed someone who is in fact innocent," he said. White was responding to concerns about the case of Cameron Willingham who was executed in Texas in 2004 despite new evidence indicating that the arson investigation that led to his conviction was flawed. Texas' present governor, Rick Perry, recently dismissed the chair and two members of a State Forensic Science Commission that was scheduled to hear evidence regarding the case. Former governor White said the case is one example “of why I think the system is so unreliable.”

Now of course there are obvious exceptions to the general dispensability of the death penalty. For starters, there are line-cutters -- how can that not call for a mandatory death penalty? Then there are people who use their cell phones, or are texting on them or some damned things, on stairways, or at the head or foot of a stairway. Lethally inject 'em!

That's just off the top of my head. If you give me a chance to think about it, I'm sure I can come up with more. But these will be cheap, because these death sentences quickly delivered and automatically enforced. No appeals, no decades-long delays, barely even a trial, I'm thinking.


BY THE WAY, KUDOS TO MATT KELLEY . . .

. . . who in his report earlier this week for change.org's Criminal Justice blog reversed the order of importance of the two principal subjects of discussion in the DPIC report:

A report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center finds that Police Chiefs don't believe the death penalty deters crime.

They also don't think it's a good use of taxpayer money.

Oh, and if they had to choose between life without parole (with victim restitution) and the death penalty, only 47% of them would choose death. That's exactly the same result as a Gallup poll of all Americans I reported on over the weekend.

The promoters of the report are hyping the economic issue. But surely Matt is right, that the more important conclusion in the report is that the death penalty doesn't work. Well done, sir!

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