A group opposing capital punishment is urging government officials to reassess the costs and benefits of the death penalty in light of America's economic troubles
(ABC News Photo Illustration)A group opposing capital punishment is urging government officials to reassess the costs and benefits of the death penalty in light of America's economic troubles.
State and local governments facing dire budget crunches can realize substantial savings by replacing capital punishment with a regime that sentences the worst offenders to life in prison without parole, according to a report released Tuesday by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
The number of death sentences handed down in the United States has dropped from roughly 300 a year in the 1990s to 115 a year more recently. Executions are falling off at the same rate, the report says.
In the meantime, some 3,300 inmates remain on death row.
"[T]he death penalty is turning into a very expensive form of life without parole," said Richard Dieter, DPIC executive director, in a statement. "At a time of budget shortfalls, the death penalty cannot be exempt from reevaluation alongside other wasteful government programs that no longer make sense."
Despite the report's findings, the death penalty has the support of most Americans. According to an October 2008 Gallup survey, 64 percent of Americans favor the death penalty for a person convicted of murder. Thirty percent oppose it.
Only once in the past 70 years (in 1966-67) did more Americans oppose capital punishment than support it, the poll results show. In that time span, 47 percent opposed it, while 42 percent supported it.
The DPIC study does not address American attitudes toward capital punishment. Instead, the report focuses on the economic costs.
A 2008 study in California found that the state was spending $137 million a year on capital cases. A comparable system that instead sentenced the same offenders to life without parole would cost $11.5 million, says the DPIC report, citing the study's estimates.
New York spent $170 million over nine years on capital cases before repealing the death penalty. No executions were carried out there.
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