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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (2086)	1/21/2001 11:47:05 PM
From: E	Respond to of 82486

'Night. I'm going soon, too. You're right about capital punishment. Not only the appeals, but the very expensive death row maintenance required during the lengthy appeal process. And there are usually two phases to the trial, if I recall this correctly. Each has its cost. (One for guilt, one for penalty, or some such thing.) And maintaining a facility in readiness for executing has a not insignificant cost. There are those who feel that it's worth the extra cost. Even though no one has ever been able to show any correlation whatever between the death penalty and lower crime rates. Demogogic politicians love it. They get a lot out of waving this emotional issue about with self righteous facial expressions, and have to say nothing of substance and accomplish nothing. People do get the governance they deserve, often. This subject has been talked about so much on feelies. I just got this feeling of fatigue about it. Edit: I just found these in Solon's post that follows this one: Old figure, but... A 1982 study in New York concluded that the average capital murder trial and the first stage of appeals costs U.S. tax-payers 1.8 million dollars (Bohm, 1987). It is estimated that this is less than it would cost to incarcerate someone for one hundred years. and, of course, there's this: Bedau and Radelet (1988) studied capital convictions for the period from 1900 to 1986 and identified 350 cases in which defendants were erroneously convicted of capital crimes. Twenty four of these people were executed for crimes that they did not commit. Society must determine whether the benefits gained through execution of convicted killers outweigh the risk of executing innocent person...