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Life vs. Death Penalty

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Life vs. Death Penalty
Death Penalty vs. Life in Jail The death penalty has been one of the most debated topics in America for years. It holds the same level of importance in politics as abortion or gun control because it is such a controversial subject. The stance that I currently hold with this debate is closer towards life in prison. Not because I don’t fully believe that someone who kills a lot of people or does just horrible acts should 100% be punished and possibly killed themselves, but because I find more benefits towards keeping someone in jail for life. For example, the cost to keep someone in jail is a lot cheaper than it is to kill them. A study in 2011 showed that it cost California more than $4 billion dollars to do executions since 1978. $1.94 billion went towards the trails, $925 million towards Automatic Appeals and State Habeas Corpus Petitions, $775 million towards Federal Habeas Corpus Appeals, and $1 billion went towards Costs of Incarceration. And we can’t forget how much it costs to pay for the security guards who look over these inmates. The total cost to pay these security guards a year comes up to $90,000 PER INMATE a year. It’s also been said that the death penalty trails are 20 times more expensive than a trail for imprisonment without parole. If the Governor of California sentenced the inmates that are on death row to life in prison he could save almost $170 million a year! The Executive of the DPIC stated, “The death penalty in the U.S. is an enormously expensive and wasteful program with no clear benefits. All of the studies on the cost of capital punishment conclude it is much more expensive than a system with life sentences as the maximum penalty. In a time of painful budget cutbacks, states are pouring money into a system that results in a declining number of death sentences and executions that are almost exclusively carried out in just one area of the country. As many states face further deficits, it is an appropriate time to consider whether
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