Taking the life of another has been considered a heinous crime that is worthy of capital punishment; but should taking the life of a person who has taken the life of another be justified? Is the murderer’s life less important than that of the person whose life he took? The death penalty has been the highest form of punishment around the United States, execution of innocent men, its negative influence on our society and the offence it has against human rights are all concerns that make the capital punishment wrong.
The first established death penalty laws date as far back ats the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. The first evidence of the death penalty …show more content…
The cost of carrying out an execution consists of the maintainer of an electric chair, lethal injections or other devices used for executions, cost related to execution and burial of the person executed. There’s also the attorney cost which is higher in capital cases because attorneys spend an abundant amount of hours at each level of the criminal proceedings. A prisoner spends an average of eight years on death row and during this time the prisoner must be maintained in a special maximum security facility for death row inmates. In 1978, the annual cost of housing a prisoner in New York was $15,050 while the cost of maintaining the prisoner was $602,000. Similarly in Florida, the expense of death row and execution is estimated to be six times more. The prisoners, condemned, are not permitted to work in the prison to repay the state for the costs of his or her confinement. . A single death penalty case ranges from $1 million to $3 million. The state of California has the largest and costliest death row amounting to 714 inmates. Between 1980 and 2012, California spent about $4.6 billion dollars on the death penalty for 13 people. This equal $308 million on one execution. In North Carolina, a study performed found that there would be a $2 million difference between a death sentence and a life without parole sentence. It has been found that a death penalty case costs about $3 million, which is three times the cost of 40 years imprisonment of an inmate (Cuomo, 1956). I think that the death penalty should be abolished, but should be replaced with a punishment that has a similar effect but is less expensive. True life imprisonment seems more effective than the capital punishment. To most inmates, the thought of spending the rest of their lives behind bars only to die in a cell is worse than a quick death by lethal injection. In 1995, an inmate was
The first established death penalty laws date as far back ats the Eighteenth Century B.C. in the Code of King Hammurabi of Babylon, which codified the death penalty for 25 different crimes. The first evidence of the death penalty …show more content…
The cost of carrying out an execution consists of the maintainer of an electric chair, lethal injections or other devices used for executions, cost related to execution and burial of the person executed. There’s also the attorney cost which is higher in capital cases because attorneys spend an abundant amount of hours at each level of the criminal proceedings. A prisoner spends an average of eight years on death row and during this time the prisoner must be maintained in a special maximum security facility for death row inmates. In 1978, the annual cost of housing a prisoner in New York was $15,050 while the cost of maintaining the prisoner was $602,000. Similarly in Florida, the expense of death row and execution is estimated to be six times more. The prisoners, condemned, are not permitted to work in the prison to repay the state for the costs of his or her confinement. . A single death penalty case ranges from $1 million to $3 million. The state of California has the largest and costliest death row amounting to 714 inmates. Between 1980 and 2012, California spent about $4.6 billion dollars on the death penalty for 13 people. This equal $308 million on one execution. In North Carolina, a study performed found that there would be a $2 million difference between a death sentence and a life without parole sentence. It has been found that a death penalty case costs about $3 million, which is three times the cost of 40 years imprisonment of an inmate (Cuomo, 1956). I think that the death penalty should be abolished, but should be replaced with a punishment that has a similar effect but is less expensive. True life imprisonment seems more effective than the capital punishment. To most inmates, the thought of spending the rest of their lives behind bars only to die in a cell is worse than a quick death by lethal injection. In 1995, an inmate was