Friday, September 09, 2011 4:34:11 AM
Rubbing hands together .. seems to me there are many juicy little FACTS in there which would
be just right for Democratic ad campaigns .. rubbing hands together .. here is another one ..
Poll of Police Chiefs Shows Death Penalty Ranked Least Among Crime-Fighting Priorities
Written by David Greenwald Saturday, 24 October 2009 04:13
California spends $137 million per year on the death penalty and has not had an execution in almost four years, even as the state pays its employees in IOUs and releases inmates early to address overcrowding and budget shortfalls.
A report was released earlier this week by the Death Penalty Information Center. It concludes that states are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on the death penalty, draining state budgets during times of economic crisis when money could be used more effectively on other programs.
According to the report, a nationwide poll of police chiefs found that they ranked the death penalty last among their priorities for crime-fighting, do not believe the death penalty deters murder, and rate it as the least efficient use of limited taxpayer dollars.
Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center and the report’s author:
“With many states spending millions to retain the death penalty, while seldom or never carrying out an execution, the death penalty is turning into a very expensive form of life without parole. At a time of budget shortfalls, the death penalty cannot be exempt from reevaluation alongside other wasteful government programs that no longer make sense.”
Police Chief James Abbott of West Orange, New Jersey, a Republican, has served 29 years on the police force and was a member of the state commission that recommended the death penalty be abolished.
“The death penalty is a colossal waste of money that would be better spent putting more cops on the street. New Jersey threw away $250 million on the death penalty over 25 years with nothing to show for it. The death penalty isn't a deterrent whatsoever. New Jersey's murder rate has dropped since the state got rid of the death penalty. If other states abolished the death penalty, law enforcement wouldn’t miss it and the cost savings could be used on more effective crime-fighting programs.”
According to the release, some of the key findings of the poll include:
* The death penalty was ranked last when the police chiefs were asked to name one area as “most important for reducing violent crime,” with only one percent listing it as the best way to reduce violence. The death penalty came in behind more police officers; reducing drug abuse; better economy and more jobs; longer prison sentences; and technological innovations such as improved laboratories and crime databases.
* The police chiefs ranked the death penalty as the least efficient use of taxpayers' money. They rated expanded training and more equipment for police officers; hiring more police officers; community policing; more programs to control drug and alcohol abuse; and neighborhood watch programs as more efficient uses of taxpayers’ dollars.
* Almost 6 in 10 police chiefs (57%) agreed that the death penalty does little to prevent violent crimes because perpetrators rarely consider the consequences when engaged in violence. Although the police chiefs did not oppose the death penalty in principle, less than half (47%) would support it if a sentence of life without parole with mandatory restitution to the victim’s family were available.
Judy Kerr of Albany, California said:
“We need to stop wasting money on a broken death penalty and instead spend our limited resources on solving more homicides. My brother's murder has remained unsolved for more than six years. The death penalty won't bring my brother back or help to apprehend his murderer. We need to start investing in programs that will actually improve public safety and get more killers off the streets.”
The extra costs of the death penalty, beyond life sentences, are often $10 million per year per state. If a state spent that $10 million on hiring new police officers (or teachers) at $40,000 per year, it could afford to hire 250 additional workers.
In Florida, where the courts have lost 10 percent of their funding, the state spends $51 million dollars per year on the death penalty or $24 million for each execution.
Executions themselves are not expensive; it is the pursuit of the death penalty that carries a high price tag. The higher costs of the death penalty process -- including the costs of higher security on death row -- are unavoidable and likely to increase in light of all the mistakes that have been made in capital cases.
In 2009, 11 state legislatures (Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas and Washington) considered abolition bills. New Mexico abolished the death penalty and Maryland narrowed its application with costs as an issue in both states.
Both houses of the Connecticut legislature voted to end the death penalty and one house of the Montana and Colorado legislatures (where cost savings were to be allocated to solving cold cases) passed abolition bills. The trend of states reexamining the death penalty in light of the economic crisis is expected to continue.
Read “Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis.” ..
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/CostsRptFinal.pdf ..
Commentary
This is a year that has seen billions cut from the budget including $15 billion to education. We have cut funding our universities to the point where tuition is rising tremendously, enrollment is falling, and faculty and staff are being forced to take furloughs. We have cut social services to the bone. But the most frustrating aspect of it all is that we have not made fundamental changes in how we run and fund government.
That means as soon as the economy improves, spending will go right back to where it was and the next recession we will go through this all over again. We are losing a chance at reform.
In August, a federal judicial panel ordered California to reduce its inmate population by roughly 27 percent, or 40,000, over two years. The courts have found that prison overcrowding is the main cause of negligent medical and mental health care. As a result, the legislature passed a watered down plan.
However, now that panel has rejected the plan because it failed to meet the terms of the earlier court order. The Governor has 21 days to submit a new plan and if it fails to submit an adequate one the court will develop its own plan.
This is but one example of the inability of the state to adequately address reform. The state needs to look into its mandatory sentencing laws, find ways to get non-violent offenders out of jail and into programs that will get them back into society as productive members, reform drug laws, and in general find a way to reduce the costs of prisons.
$137 million on a death penalty system that the state rarely uses might be a good start from a fiscal standpoint. While it is a drop in the bucket, there are simply better and more cost effective ways to fight crime.
---David M. Greenwald reporting .. http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3057:poll-of-police-chiefs-shows-death-penalty-ranked-least-among-crime-fighting-priorities&Itemid=109
=================
Texas again leads nation in executions; Ohio a distant second
By John Gramlich, Stateline Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Officially, 35 states retain the death penalty, but far fewer use it with any regularity, as a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment research and advocacy group, makes clear.
In 2010, only seven states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia — executed more than one prisoner, the report finds. Of those seven states, Texas was far and away the most active, executing 17 inmates in 2010, compared with eight for Ohio, the second-busiest state. Alabama was third with five executions.
Nationally, 46 prisoners were executed this year, a 12-percent drop from the 52 who were executed last year. Ten years ago, 85 executions took place nationally. Death sentences, too, have seen a sharp decline over the last decade, with 114 people sentenced to die this year, compared with more than twice as many — 234 — in 2000.
The reasons behind the decline in death sentences and executions are a point of debate. According to the Death Penalty Information Center's new report, capital punishment "continued to be mired in conflict in 2010, as states grappled with an ongoing controversy over lethal injections, the high cost of capital punishment, and increasing public sentiment in favor of alternative sentences."
But the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a victims' rights group in Sacramento, California, notes that the number of executions this year — 46 — is the exact average of executions nationally over the last four years, not the sharp decline that the Death Penalty Information Center portrays. The group also says the declining number of death sentences is a reflection not of juries' uneasiness with the death penalty, but simply a decline in murders.
"Today’s Take” provides a quick analysis of the day’s top news in state government.
—Contact John Gramlich at jgramlich@stateline.org .. http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=537042
be just right for Democratic ad campaigns .. rubbing hands together .. here is another one ..
Poll of Police Chiefs Shows Death Penalty Ranked Least Among Crime-Fighting Priorities
Written by David Greenwald Saturday, 24 October 2009 04:13
California spends $137 million per year on the death penalty and has not had an execution in almost four years, even as the state pays its employees in IOUs and releases inmates early to address overcrowding and budget shortfalls.
A report was released earlier this week by the Death Penalty Information Center. It concludes that states are wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on the death penalty, draining state budgets during times of economic crisis when money could be used more effectively on other programs.
According to the report, a nationwide poll of police chiefs found that they ranked the death penalty last among their priorities for crime-fighting, do not believe the death penalty deters murder, and rate it as the least efficient use of limited taxpayer dollars.
Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center and the report’s author:
“With many states spending millions to retain the death penalty, while seldom or never carrying out an execution, the death penalty is turning into a very expensive form of life without parole. At a time of budget shortfalls, the death penalty cannot be exempt from reevaluation alongside other wasteful government programs that no longer make sense.”
Police Chief James Abbott of West Orange, New Jersey, a Republican, has served 29 years on the police force and was a member of the state commission that recommended the death penalty be abolished.
“The death penalty is a colossal waste of money that would be better spent putting more cops on the street. New Jersey threw away $250 million on the death penalty over 25 years with nothing to show for it. The death penalty isn't a deterrent whatsoever. New Jersey's murder rate has dropped since the state got rid of the death penalty. If other states abolished the death penalty, law enforcement wouldn’t miss it and the cost savings could be used on more effective crime-fighting programs.”
According to the release, some of the key findings of the poll include:
* The death penalty was ranked last when the police chiefs were asked to name one area as “most important for reducing violent crime,” with only one percent listing it as the best way to reduce violence. The death penalty came in behind more police officers; reducing drug abuse; better economy and more jobs; longer prison sentences; and technological innovations such as improved laboratories and crime databases.
* The police chiefs ranked the death penalty as the least efficient use of taxpayers' money. They rated expanded training and more equipment for police officers; hiring more police officers; community policing; more programs to control drug and alcohol abuse; and neighborhood watch programs as more efficient uses of taxpayers’ dollars.
* Almost 6 in 10 police chiefs (57%) agreed that the death penalty does little to prevent violent crimes because perpetrators rarely consider the consequences when engaged in violence. Although the police chiefs did not oppose the death penalty in principle, less than half (47%) would support it if a sentence of life without parole with mandatory restitution to the victim’s family were available.
Judy Kerr of Albany, California said:
“We need to stop wasting money on a broken death penalty and instead spend our limited resources on solving more homicides. My brother's murder has remained unsolved for more than six years. The death penalty won't bring my brother back or help to apprehend his murderer. We need to start investing in programs that will actually improve public safety and get more killers off the streets.”
The extra costs of the death penalty, beyond life sentences, are often $10 million per year per state. If a state spent that $10 million on hiring new police officers (or teachers) at $40,000 per year, it could afford to hire 250 additional workers.
In Florida, where the courts have lost 10 percent of their funding, the state spends $51 million dollars per year on the death penalty or $24 million for each execution.
Executions themselves are not expensive; it is the pursuit of the death penalty that carries a high price tag. The higher costs of the death penalty process -- including the costs of higher security on death row -- are unavoidable and likely to increase in light of all the mistakes that have been made in capital cases.
In 2009, 11 state legislatures (Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas and Washington) considered abolition bills. New Mexico abolished the death penalty and Maryland narrowed its application with costs as an issue in both states.
Both houses of the Connecticut legislature voted to end the death penalty and one house of the Montana and Colorado legislatures (where cost savings were to be allocated to solving cold cases) passed abolition bills. The trend of states reexamining the death penalty in light of the economic crisis is expected to continue.
Read “Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis.” ..
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/CostsRptFinal.pdf ..
Commentary
This is a year that has seen billions cut from the budget including $15 billion to education. We have cut funding our universities to the point where tuition is rising tremendously, enrollment is falling, and faculty and staff are being forced to take furloughs. We have cut social services to the bone. But the most frustrating aspect of it all is that we have not made fundamental changes in how we run and fund government.
That means as soon as the economy improves, spending will go right back to where it was and the next recession we will go through this all over again. We are losing a chance at reform.
In August, a federal judicial panel ordered California to reduce its inmate population by roughly 27 percent, or 40,000, over two years. The courts have found that prison overcrowding is the main cause of negligent medical and mental health care. As a result, the legislature passed a watered down plan.
However, now that panel has rejected the plan because it failed to meet the terms of the earlier court order. The Governor has 21 days to submit a new plan and if it fails to submit an adequate one the court will develop its own plan.
This is but one example of the inability of the state to adequately address reform. The state needs to look into its mandatory sentencing laws, find ways to get non-violent offenders out of jail and into programs that will get them back into society as productive members, reform drug laws, and in general find a way to reduce the costs of prisons.
$137 million on a death penalty system that the state rarely uses might be a good start from a fiscal standpoint. While it is a drop in the bucket, there are simply better and more cost effective ways to fight crime.
---David M. Greenwald reporting .. http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3057:poll-of-police-chiefs-shows-death-penalty-ranked-least-among-crime-fighting-priorities&Itemid=109
=================
Texas again leads nation in executions; Ohio a distant second
By John Gramlich, Stateline Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Officially, 35 states retain the death penalty, but far fewer use it with any regularity, as a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center, an anti-capital punishment research and advocacy group, makes clear.
In 2010, only seven states — Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia — executed more than one prisoner, the report finds. Of those seven states, Texas was far and away the most active, executing 17 inmates in 2010, compared with eight for Ohio, the second-busiest state. Alabama was third with five executions.
Nationally, 46 prisoners were executed this year, a 12-percent drop from the 52 who were executed last year. Ten years ago, 85 executions took place nationally. Death sentences, too, have seen a sharp decline over the last decade, with 114 people sentenced to die this year, compared with more than twice as many — 234 — in 2000.
The reasons behind the decline in death sentences and executions are a point of debate. According to the Death Penalty Information Center's new report, capital punishment "continued to be mired in conflict in 2010, as states grappled with an ongoing controversy over lethal injections, the high cost of capital punishment, and increasing public sentiment in favor of alternative sentences."
But the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a victims' rights group in Sacramento, California, notes that the number of executions this year — 46 — is the exact average of executions nationally over the last four years, not the sharp decline that the Death Penalty Information Center portrays. The group also says the declining number of death sentences is a reflection not of juries' uneasiness with the death penalty, but simply a decline in murders.
"Today’s Take” provides a quick analysis of the day’s top news in state government.
—Contact John Gramlich at jgramlich@stateline.org .. http://www.stateline.org/live/details/story?contentId=537042
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