The study was submitted to the
State Affairs Committee of the South Dakota State Senate as part of the committee’s hearing on this year’s bill to abolish capital punishment.
[3] The study was referenced by both proponents and opponents of the bill during the hearing, and its numbers were not refuted.
While the legal costs were greater, information from the South Dakota Department of Correction shows the average cost of long-term incarceration for a prisoner sentenced to death is lower than that of a prisoner serving a life sentence. Because there are no extra expenses involved in housing condemned prisoners, and those prisoners are incarcerated for less time in state prison, the average savings per prisoner is $159,523.
[19]
Since the average savings in long-term incarceration is so much lower than the average additional legal costs, it appears Davis is correct about the cost of the death penalty versus life imprisonment in his home state.
Because the costs associated with capital punishment have not been studied in every state that has the death penalty, and because most of the existing studies are limited in scope, it is not possible to state definitively that the death penalty is always more expensive than life in prison in the United States. But the studies of capital punishment conducted since the
Furman decision do offer support for Davis’ claim.
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