It cost over $300 million to execute each of 13 prisoners in California over the past 30 years, a study by a Loyola Law School professor and a senior judge has found.
The study by U.S. 9th Circuit Judge Arthur L. Alarcon and Professor Paula M. Mitchell found that state and federal government have spent more than $4 billion on capital punishment in California since it was reinstated in 1978, or about $308 million for each of the 13 executions carried out since then, according to a comprehensive analysis of the death penalty’s costs, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The report also forecast that the tab for maintaining the death penalty will climb to $9 billion by 2030, when San Quentin’s death row will have swollen to well over 1,000.
In their research for “Executing the Will of the Voters: A Roadmap to Mend or End the California Legislature’s Multi-Billion-Dollar Death Penalty Debacle,” Alarcon and Mitchell obtained California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation records that were unavailable to others who have sought to calculate a cost-benefit analysis of capital punishment.
Sources
- CathNewsUSA
- Image: LA Times
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News category: World.
