Death Penalty on the economy?

fendi

fendi

fendi

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Does anyone have any thoughts on how having the death penalty in place affects the economy they live in, or not having it. For example, having it deters crime, saves lives.

What is the next best thing if we don't have it, i.e opportunity cost.

Any views are welcome.
 
I thought it would deter crime, someone would think twice about murder/serious crime because the punishment is much more severe. With no death penalty they can be out in a matter of years.
 
fendi said:
having it deters crime, saves lives.
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Death penalty costs more than jailing someone for life, doesn't deter criminals and thus don't save lifes. I see no reason for having it and personally it goes against my morals.

fendi said:
I thought it would deter crime, someone would think twice about murder/serious crime because the punishment is much more severe. With no death penalty they can be out in a matter of years.
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If 20 years in jail doesn't deter them, nothing will. The simple thing is criminals don't think they will get caught.
 
AcidHell2 how can you say the death penalty costs more than keeping someone alive for life. I read it costs £118 per day, that is over one million pounds throughout their life. It would save a lot of money have it in place.

The only downside i see for having it is that an innocent man could get executed.

I am not trying to cause an arguement.

Edit,

Thinking about it, having all the appeals, juries, lawyers etc, that would add up.
 
fendi said:
AcidHell2 how can you say the death penalty costs more than keeping someone alive for life. I read it costs £118 per day, that is over one million pounds throughout their life. It would save a lot of money have it in place.
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To execute someone, they would probably have to go through a couple of lengthy appeals processes, costing a similar amount or more.
 
fendi said:
AcidHell2 how can you say the death penalty costs more than keeping someone alive for life. I read it costs £118 per day, that is over one million pounds throughout their life. It would save a lot of money have it in place.
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Because it does cost more, look at America which is a very similar law structure to us. The reason it costs so much is the appeals and saftey procedures taht are in place. To try and stop innocent people being killed. But it's not anywhere near 100%.
 
They should have a limit on how many appeals they can have, and not having it strung out for 20 years, that is one reason as to why the cost would so high.

Having it in place though would free up room in prisons! Plus point.
 
I am completely opposed to the death penalty. I think that anyone has the right to life, whatever crime they have committed.

From a practical point of view, all of the evidence says that the death penalty costs massively more than keeping someone in prison for life - and the idea of "have less appeals" to keep the costs down sounds horrendously dangerous and will end up with significant numbers of people being murdered by the state when they haven't even committed a crime in the first place.

Even if you don't agree with me that the death penalty is inherantly wrong, I don't have an absolutely faith in any justice system - if there's even a one in a million chance of someone being wrongly executed then the whole system is wrong in my view. If you disagree with that then imagine how you'd feel if it was you or someone close to you who was "legally" murdered.

As for deterring crime, I really don't think there's very much evidence that it does. As people have said, if you commit a crime that you expect will give you 30 years in prison you already don't expect to be caught. People committing armed crimes probably won't be affected much - we're not talking about kids being frightened out of putting grafitti on the walls.
 
I don't understand how the fundamentalist right wing christians in america can be so for the death penalty... weird.
 
It is really bizarre, i was on an American forum and they were pretty much all for it, here the total opposite.

Thanks for your views, helps broaden my thinking.
 
fendi said:
It is really bizarre, i was on an American forum and they were pretty much all for it, here the total opposite.
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I think it's quite common on issues like the death penalty to end up supporting what is the local law - after all, we don't have the death penalty, so it seems unnatural to us, whereas if we did have it then it would seem more usual.

Having said that, I'm sure when this has been discussed here in the past there's always been a few people who are very strong supporters!
 
The death penalty is no deterent on someone crazy enough to murder - and that has been proven in many states and countries.

It also has no effect on the numbers convicted of drug crimes in Asian countries.

I do however agree with it :eek:

Simple reason is, it causes less of my tax money to look after some scumbag for 50+ years in a jail - so that he/she doesn't have to work again and gets everything handed to him/her. And funnily enough, there are very few wrongly convicted people given the death penalty - although some people are led to believe up to 50% shouldn't have died simply due to the spin the media puts on it.
 
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Criminals generally don't think they will get caught. Like it has been said, if 20 years in an American jail doesn't deter them, not a lot will.
 
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