People are mistaken if they believe that executing a prisoner is less expensive than his/her permanent incarceration; in fact, the cost of capital punishment greatly outweighs the cost of keeping an inmate incarcerated for life. In addition, the cost of capital punishment has been increasing since the 1970s. In 1972, it was much more expensive to gather evidence to support the innocence or the guilt of the accused in a death sentence trial rather than a life sentence trial (Capital Punishment "). Also during this time, all death sentences had to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. This would usually cost up to $70,000 and in some cases, if the case went any further, the process could reach up to $275,000 or more (Capital Punishment "). Furthermore, as the years passed, a study at Duke University presented data that showed that North Carolina alone spent over one billion dollars on executions between 1976 and 1992 (Capital Punishment "). This amount of money is not much if compared to today's total amount of money spent but in the 1970s, it was considered a large amount. Therefore, it must be taken into consideration that in the past, everything cost less because the United States did not own as much money as it does today.
Currently, the cost of capital punishment is still increasing. In 2002, the Indiana Criminal Law Study Commission said that it costs states thirty-eight percent more money for executions than it does for keeping an inmate incarcerated for life (Capital Punishment). Moreover, an editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times revealed that "the death penalty has consumed $10 million in the past seven years" (Death Penalty Information Center"). So, why does it cost so much more to keep an inmate incarcerated? Well, probably because being sentenced to death is a very serious issue. A lot of money is spent so that the court can be one-hundred percent sure that the accused truly is proven guilty.
