The cost of the death penalty is one of the reasons that the government of the United States should ban capital punishment. Capital punishment in 32 states cost the government of the United States a huge amount of money that could be used wisely in other important issues such as creating jobs, public health, and education. For example, in Kansas non-death penalty cases which counted through to the end of incarceration cost the state in average $740,000, while death penalty cases which counted through execution cost the state $1.26 million for each inmate (Survey by the Kansas Legislative Post Audit). Moreover, in Maryland death penalty cases cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases, or $3 million for a single case (Urban Institute, The Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland, March 2008). In California, according to the Assessment of Costs by the federal Judge Arthur Alarcon and Professor of Law at Loyola Law School Paula Mitchell, the cost of the death penalty has totaled over $4 billion since 1978. The authors calculated that, if the governor commuted the sentences of those remaining on death row to life without parole, it would result in an immediate savings of $170 million per year, with a savings of $5 billion over the next 20 years (The Death Penalty Information Center).
The second reason that the government of the United States should ban the capital punishment is that many wrongly convicted people could die. According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences, 4% of defendants sentenced to die are innocent in the US. Since 1973, 151 people have been released from death rows throughout the country due to evidence of their wrongful convictions. In 2003 alone, 10 wrongfully convicted defendants were released from death row. Furthermore, from 1973-1999, there was an average of 3.03 exonerations per year, and from 2000-2013, there has been an average of 4.29 exonerations per year (The Death Penalty Information Center). Therefore, the government of the United States should ban the death penalty to prevent the death of innocent people.
Although some supporters of the death penalty argue that capital punishment deter crime, recent studies shows completely the opposite. In fact, the states that do not apply capital punishment have lower crime rate than the states that apply the death penalty. According to the N.C. Department of Justice, the state murder rate has declined significantly since the executions stopped. According to a research reported in Homicide Studies, executions may actually increase the number of murders, rather than prevent murders. Furthermore, according to statistics from the latest FBI Uniform Crime Report, regions of the country that do not apply the death penalty are the safest for police officers. In the United States, murder rate in death penalty states is 5.83% while the murder rate in non- death penalty states is 4.10% in 2007 (Death Penalty Information Center). The percent difference between non-death penalty states and death penalty states is 42%. In other words, the capital punishment supporters who claim that death penalty deter crime do not have a solid evidence to prove their claim.
In conclusion, it may be true that in order to keep an inmate in prison for life costs the government a huge amount of money. However, the death penalty costs the government even more money than keeping a convict behind bars. Therefore, the government of the United States should abolish capital punishment laws because it costs the government enormous amount of money, many innocent people could die, and capital punishment is not an effective punishment to prevent the crimes from happing.
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