Jim Davidsaver, a retired police cap­tain with over 25 years expe­ri­ence in the Lincoln (Nebraska) Police Department, recent­ly advo­cat­ed for repeal of the state’s death penal­ty from a law enforce­ment per­spec­tive. In an op-ed in the Lincoln Journal-Star, Davidsaver said, “[M]y pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence has shown me that our state’s death penal­ty doesn’t keep us any safer. Its exor­bi­tant cost actu­al­ly detracts from pro­grams that would pro­mote the over­all health, safe­ty and wel­fare of our com­mu­ni­ties.” He high­light­ed the finan­cial trade­off between the death penal­ty and oth­er crime pre­ven­tion mea­sures: ​“The mil­lions of dol­lars we’ve spent on the death penal­ty would have been much bet­ter invest­ed in more police offi­cers, addi­tion­al resources or train­ing for our cur­rent offi­cers.” He con­clud­ed, ​“The cheap­er, more intel­li­gent alter­na­tive for our state is life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. Repealing the death penal­ty does not mean we are ​‘soft’ on crime. It means we are smart on crime.”

Davidsaver also reject­ed the idea that crim­i­nals are deterred by the death penal­ty: ​“I have nev­er met a crim­i­nal who expect­ed to be caught, or was deterred by the slight pos­si­bil­i­ty he would be sen­tenced to death instead of spend­ing the rest of his life in prison.” He point­ed to poll results that show oth­er police offi­cers share his view of the death penal­ty as inef­fec­tive. ​“A full 99% of the police chiefs said ini­tia­tives such as more offi­cers or bet­ter light­ing in high crime areas would make a more sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion than the death penal­ty in keep­ing their communities safe.”

(J. Davidsaver, ​“Local View: Repealing death penal­ty would make us ​‘smart on crime’,” Lincoln Journal-Star, November 24, 2014). See New Voices and Costs. See also DPIC’s report,
Smart on Crime: Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis.

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