Connecticut has been paying about $5 million a year to maintain its death penalty system, according to the state's Office of Fiscal Analysis, despite the fact it is rarely used. The only person the state has executed since 1960 is serial killer Michael Ross, who raped and murdered eight young women in the 1980s.
The repeal of the death penalty is expected to save the state $850,000 per year in the next two fiscal years, and the OFA estimates that that number will grow to $5 million in subsequent years.
"With Governor Malloy's action, Connecticut joins sixteen other states that have already concluded that the death penalty is too risky, too expensive, and too arbitrary to continue," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, an advocacy group that opposes capital punishment. "By replacing the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole, Connecticut officials have reduced the risk of executing the innocent and freed up taxpayer dollars for other programs that prevent crime more effectively and better serve victims' families."
A majority of voters in Connecticut oppose the death penalty ban. Sixty-two percent of respondents to a Quinnipiac University poll said they support the death penalty in general, compared to 30 percent who oppose it and 54 percent of voters who said it was a bad idea to replace the death penalty with a sentence of life without parole in Connecticut.
"We have tried to be consistent in not saying much about polls because ... what's there to say?" said Roy Occhiogrosso, senior adviser to the governor, in a statement on Wednesday. "Polls come and go, numbers go up and down. The governor always does what he thinks is best for the state and the right thing to do."
A number of cash-strapped states have been reevaluating their death penalty systems lately as a way to save taxpayers millions of dollars annually. Illinois got rid of capital punishment in 2011, and California has an initiative on the November 2012 ballot to replace its death penalty system, which is estimated to cost about $184 million a year, with a sentence of life without parole.
9 comments:
Now that the death penalty is gone in Connecticut, I wonder if the crime rate will go up or go down. It's also interesting that most of the voters were in favor of the death penalty and that the adviser seemed like he was ignoring those polls.
I don't like paying the living expenses of a murderer. It really bothers me that genuinely evil people get to live of of the money that we provide. It's not as though this is a personal nuisance; it just seems really backwards to me. I mean, the death penalty is more expensive than keeping a prisoner alive for his lifetime, but that's only because people on death row get so many appeals. I mean, if you think about it, it's really not very expensive to kill a person. But I think the death penalty is growing more and more justified, as it is becoming easier and easier to determine guilt.
I think that repealing the law was a good idea because it was a huge waste of money to maintain it without it even being used. Anyone who opposes it should pay for it themselves because it's not right that tax payers should have to support a program like that when any beneficial gains it provides are so marginally small and insignificant compared to alternatives.
I feel like getting rid of the death penalty would be more expensive than keeping it. You would have to pay to keep them alive for a long time and it would get expensive. The death penalty can be more expensive in the short term but in the long term not having it will be more expensive for tax payers.
I agree with Connecticut's decision to replace the death penalty. When a criminal commits a truly gruesome crime and is left to sit in prison with no hope of ever giving out, they receive a harsher punishment than the death penalty. Unless the criminals are completely insane and have absolutely no humanistic qualities, they are going to dwell on what they did and in many cases, wish they were dead. By keeping the death penalty in effect, it simply grants the criminals what they will eventually yearn for anyway. It makes no sense. Justice is served more when the criminals are actually punished.
I think this was a good move by Connecticut to remove the death penalty. There's been several cases where wrong executions have been performed, and by removing the death penalty completely, it will prevent these cases from happening again and as it was said in the article, it will save the state money as well
I think that repealing the death penalty won't benefit the state as much as they expect. They will still have to pay for the room and board for inmates, and have to pay millions for the expansion of federal and state prisons. In all, they hope to save money, but in reality, they're only paying more. Also, the families of victims may not feel that a life penalty is enough compensation for their loss. The food and rooms provided for the defendant/inmate may be better than their lives before the crime they commited.
I would love to have a opinion,but i think that it just depends on the crime. I think that they should be killed but cause i have a heart :) i guess they can sit in jail and eat and yea. Great seeing you at prom!!!! :D thanks for reminding me!! :)
The majority of the population supports the death penalty. The government should go with the people's opinion. And the death penalty is needlessly expensive. We don't need people on death row for 30 years. And a single bullet will do the job.
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