This seems to be a topic that we are sufficiently divided upon, and I for one am opposed to the death penalty. I used to be a strong proponent of the DP, but after I looked more into it there were things that turned me away from it and I want to go over some of those here. All of the information has come from the Department of Justice. The DP was reinstated in the United States in 1976 and since then 82 people sentenced to death were later found to be not guilty; that is 1 in every 7. One in seven! Assuming that nobody executed was innocent one in seven is too much room for error.
Now I am an economist so I also look at this economically. All of us can agree that we don't want to execute an innocent person, so how can we be more sure they guilty? We have to have more detailed trials, longer appeals, better public attorneys, higher qualified jury members, etc. These things cost a lot of money, but they are all necessary to insure that the person really is guilty-sure people complain about the costs when the person turns out to be guilty, but no one complains when it is found that the person was really innocent. Taking all the costs into account the average death row inmate costs 2 million dollars and life in prison costs on average 500 thousand. The cost of the death penalty is four times as much. This can only be justified if we as a society value putting someone to death over removing them from society so much we would be willing to pay an extra 1.5 million dollars per person.
The Death penalty has also been shown to not be a deterrent to crime. Crimes worthy of the death penalty are often crimes of passion or committed by people who don't care about consequences. The death penalty does not deter since the type of people who kill are not calculating the risk of getting caught or what the consequences may be. Illogical acts to not beget logical thought. Texas, with the most people executed than any other state, has a murder rate 6 times higher than Wisconsin who does not have the death penalty. That is taking into account the population difference already. The United States also has higher murder rates than all the countries in the world that have abolished the death penalty since the money spent of the death penalty process is channeled into other sicial programs aimed at reducing crime or increasing education.
Personally I think that the death penalty is something we as people should outgrow. Killing a killer is not the solution to a societal problem. We should be better than that, but that's just me. Also, I would like to remind everyone that arguments against the court system are not arguments for the death penalty. If you think it should be run differently then blog that, but don't think that the system being flawed supports the death penalty. If anyone can show me a system that does not convict innocent people and always knows who is guilty while spending less that 500 thousand dollars I will then reconsider my position.