Outdated Death Penalty Has Become Inefficient In Limiting Costs In Capital Punishment Cases, Elimination Could Be Solution

The use of capital punishment in the United States can be dated to the time when America as we know it was a British colony. In that time, a person who was sentenced to death was likely to have his or her punishment carried out within a month of the sentencing. This approach saved time and money, but it has been argued that it deprived the accused of due process, something our country values very highly.

Now, a person sentenced to death is likely to be on death row for ten to twenty years or longer. The cost of housing them, along with the costs of appeals and other court hearings, makes it more expensive to execute the convicted party than ever before and even more expensive than a sentence of life in prison. Whereas the death penalty was efficient in the past at limiting the costs of the state in capital punishment cases, it is now incredibly expensive. If the purpose of the death penalty is to simultaneously eliminate the possibility of a future threat from a known offender as well as limiting the cost of doing so, the death penalty in its current form fails and should be eliminated as a form of punishment in the United States.