www.facebook.com/bodacious.dudeA Cost/Benefit Analysis of Execution *updated*
There are a lot of arguments for doing away with the death penalty, but most of them are primarily moral arguments and are thus tinged with some measure of subjectivity. It’s hard to have a non-heated and productive discussion about issues that involve subjective analysis (see: abortion) because everyone brings their own beliefs to the discussion, and even if you try to remain open-minded and look at the issue from the other side, your own beliefs shape the way you experience the discussion. Its like the old adage about how when I look at an apple and say “its red,” and you look at the same apple and say “its red,” we aren’t necessarily describing the same thing, because the rods and cones in my eyes might be showing me ‘red 4567’ and your rods and cones might be showing you ‘red 4600.’ . I think I somehow found a way to make a difficult subject less clear. Bear with me, I think (hope) I’ll make it clearer.
.
One thing I’ve found interesting about California’s financial crisis is how it is forcing us as a State to reevaluate our spending and revenue gathering priorities, to the extent that BIG, IMPORTANT issues, normally glossed over or untouched for fear of angering one constituency or another, are being addressed. But it’s the way those issues are being addressed that is most interesting. I noticed it first when Assemblyman Ammiano put forth a bill to legalize marijuana. Instead of the moral arguments for and against (gateway drug vs. freedom of choice, etc.), the argument became whether legalizing and taxing marijuana would be an effective revenue source. By divesting the argument of (most) of the normal moral trappings, the discussion seemed to be carried on at a much more rational level.
.
Which brings me back to the death penalty. This is a good summary of an argument I’ve heard a lot lately: Regardless of whether you support or oppose the death penalty, we can all agree the current system is defectiveand outrageously expensive. Now, maybe if you strongly support the death penalty, you feel the State’s spending priorities should be such that we spend more to reform the system and get it to work quicker and smoother. But that’s more than just a pure moral argument now, its one that has to also be held at the rational, economic level. If we only have money for 10 priorities, is the death penalty on that list? What gets bumped off if that’s the case? Obviously moral values inform everyone’s preferred list…but even acknowledging the finite limit of the list helps to temper the heat.
.
I have a conservative friend. (Its probably no great secret that I’m fairly liberal: I’m under 30 and live in San Francisco.) We may not agree about much, and I can guarantee you that, from a moral standpoint, we disagree about the desirability/efficacy of a death penalty. But we both readily agree that its not worth the (financial) cost. Does that sort of agreement translate into changed policies? We’ll see, maybe on some things. . And it should be noted that reducing everything to a cost/benefit analysis is not necessarily a desirable thing. People feel strongly about moral issues for a reason. I’m not very happy that the UC system and CSU system are raising fees, for example.
.
It will be interesting to see if this kind of evaluation of priorities will take place on the federal level, in terms of health care, climate change, immigration, etc. vs. the deficit. Perhaps the feds can learn some lessons from the painful priortization California is being forced to undertake. Obviously the country at the federal level is nowhere near the crisis situation of California. But then, its only when we reached this crisis level that we’ve been able to honestly talk about making tough choices, and it remains to be seen whether we’ll actually make them. Hopefully the same wont have to hold true nationally.
.
UPDATE:
Here are some interesting links touching on this topic
.
It costs us $45,000 a year to incarcerate a guy, almost $20,000 more than other big states
.
Death Penalty opponents claim that commuting all 682 Death Row prisoners to life terms without the possibility of parole could save the state up to $1B (!)
.
Finally, what do you do if your system is expensive and inefficient? You outsource. In this case, sending CA prisoners to Michigan to keep that state from losing the few jobs it has left
