In his column for TIME Magazine, basketball hall of famer, author, and filmmaker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar broadly explores the state of the death penalty In the United States and concludes that life without parole is the better option for American society. Stating that “[t]he primary purpose of the death penalty is to protect the innocent,” Abdul-Jabar notes that there is a significant difference between the death penalty’s goal in theory and its application in practice. “While it’s true that the death penalty may protect us from the few individuals it does execute,” he says, “it does not come without a significant financial and social price tag that may put us all at an even greater risk.” Abdul-Jabbar points to the death penalty’s financial cost, the risk of executing the innocent, and racial and economic disparities in its application. Financially, he says, “[t]his isn’t a matter of morality versus dollars. It’s about the morality of saving the most lives with what we have to spend. Money instead could be going to trauma centers, hospital personnel, police, and firefighters, and education…The question every concerned taxpayer needs to ask is whether or not we should be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on executing prisoners when life without parole keeps the public just as safe but at a fraction of the cost.” His column discusses the “high probability that we execute innocent people,” citing the more than 140 people exonerated from death row and a recent study indicating that 4% of people sentenced to death may be innocent. Abdul-Jabbar also describes racial bias in capital sentencing, and the problem of inadequate representation, saying, “[t]his lack of fair application is why some opponents of the death penalty consider it unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.” He concludes, “we can’t let our passion for revenge override our communities’ best interest…With something as irrevocable as death, we can’t have one system of justice for the privileged few and another for the rest of the country. That, more than anything, diminishes the sanctity of human life.”

(K. Abdul-Jabbar, “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Abolish the Death Penalty,” TIME, May 22, 2015.) See New Voices, Costs, Race, and Innocence.

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