EDITORIAL: ​‘Can Oregon Afford the Death Penalty?’ – as School Funding is Reduced

An editorial The Daily Astorian, contrasts the state’s use of funds for the death penalty to the state’s reduction in funding for education. “The glaring contrast to our unquestioning spending on the death penalty - which Judge Lipscomb called ‘this largely futile attempt’ - is our disinvestment in education,” the paper noted. “Investment in education is about the future, and it is about hope. Investment in prisons and especially in the death penalty is about a final reckoning, an admission of gross failure. Prior to 1990 there was in Oregon a presumption that children were entitled to a quality education. No more. These days the only entitlement our state offers is incarceration.” The full editorial may be read below.

Can Oregon afford the death penalty?
Incarceration – not education – is Oregonians’ only entitlement

The Oregonian last Sunday raised the question of whether Oregon can afford the death penalty. If you have followed the death penalty debate over the past decade, you know the arguments on capital punishment. However, the Portland newspaper has nicely framed a question that is now more timely, because Oregon schools are about to go through one more set of deep cuts and other human services agencies similarly will be reduced.

Recessions as deep as this one upend many longtime assumptions. The economic downturn forces many businesses to revisit their own basic precepts. Do these arrangements still make sense? Many premises simply don’t stand up in light of the new financial constraints.

It is more difficult to do that with public understandings such as the death penalty. But Judge Paul Lipscomb offered this perspective to the Oregon Senate Judiciary Committee: “It seems doubtful that our taxpayers would continue to support the death penalty if they had any idea of the true costs it imposes on their criminal justice system.” The Oregonian’s article detailed those costs.

Public choices are frequently not rational choices. We seldom apply the simple test that is made in private business all the time. We can do this, but at what cost? Or, can we afford that cost?

Whether the topic is the Iraq War - whose cost rivals that of World War II in adjusted dollars - or the cost of the death penalty, economic perspective goes out the window.

So why does rationality go away? Why do we allow war-making or capital punishment to evade the economic rationale we apply to so many other aspects of our lives. One answer is that war, in particular, appeals to the emotions. It is a glandular choice, not an intellectual choice. A similar process is at work in the appeal for vengeance that is locked up in the death penalty.

The glaring contrast to our unquestioning spending on the death penalty - which Judge Lipscomb called “this largely futile attempt” - is our disinvestment in education.

Investment in education is about the future, and it is about hope. Investment in prisons and especially in the death penalty is about a final reckoning, an admission of gross failure.

Prior to 1990 there was in Oregon a presumption that children were entitled to a quality education. No more. These days the only entitlement our state offers is incarceration.

(Editorial, “Can Oregon Afford the Death Penalty?”, The Daily Astorian, April 23, 2009). See Editorials and Costs.