Policy

Costs

Studies consistently find that the death penalty is more expensive than alternative punishments.

DPI Report: The 2% Death Penalty

DPI Report: The 2% Death Penalty

How a Minority of Counties Produce Most Death Cases at Enormous Costs to All

DPI Report: Smart on Crime

DPI Report: Smart on Crime

Reconsidering the Death Penalty in a Time of Economic Crisis

Overview

The death penal­ty is a moral issue for some and a pol­i­cy issue for oth­ers. However, it is also a gov­ern­ment pro­gram with relat­ed costs. Many peo­ple assume that the state saves mon­ey by employ­ing the death penal­ty since an exe­cut­ed per­son no longer requires con­fine­ment, health care, and relat­ed expens­es. But in the mod­ern appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, that assump­tion has been repeat­ed­ly proven to be wrong.

The death penal­ty is far more expen­sive than a sys­tem uti­liz­ing life-with­out-parole sen­tences as an alter­na­tive pun­ish­ment. Some of the rea­sons for the high cost of the death penal­ty are the longer tri­als and appeals required when a person’s life is on the line, the need for more lawyers and experts on both sides of the case, and the rel­a­tive rar­i­ty of exe­cu­tions. Most cas­es in which the death penal­ty is sought do not end up with the death penal­ty being imposed. And once a death sen­tence is imposed, the most like­ly out­come of the case is that the con­vic­tion or death sen­tence will be over­turned in the courts. Most defen­dants who are sen­tenced to death essen­tial­ly end up spend­ing life in prison, but at a high­ly inflat­ed cost because the death penal­ty was involved in the process.

The Issue

How much the death penal­ty actu­al­ly costs and how that com­pares to a sys­tem in which a life sen­tence is the max­i­mum pun­ish­ment can only be deter­mined by sophis­ti­cat­ed research and stud­ies, usu­al­ly at the state lev­el. Many such stud­ies have been con­duct­ed and their con­clu­sions are con­sis­tent: the death penal­ty impos­es a net cost on the tax­pay­ers com­pared to life with­out parole. The ques­tion is whether the assumed ben­e­fits of the death penal­ty are worth its costs and whether oth­er sys­tems might pro­vide sim­i­lar ben­e­fits at less cost. The assess­ments of law enforce­ment experts are par­tic­u­lar­ly rel­e­vant in iden­ti­fy­ing what expen­di­tures are most effec­tive in reducing crime.

What DPIC Offers

This sec­tion con­tains sum­maries of each of the main cost stud­ies on the death penal­ty and links to many of the entire stud­ies. In addi­tion, DPI has pre­pared a num­ber of reports that relate to the ques­tion of costs and to the opin­ions of police chiefs and oth­er experts in this field.

Why is the death penalty so expensive?

  • Legal costs: Almost all peo­ple who face the death penal­ty can­not afford their own attor­ney. The state must assign pub­lic defend­ers or court-appoint­ed lawyers to rep­re­sent them (the accept­ed prac­tice is to assign two lawyers), and pay for the costs of the pros­e­cu­tion as well.
  • Pre-tri­al costs: Capital cas­es are far more com­pli­cat­ed than non-cap­i­tal cas­es and take longer to go to tri­al. Experts will prob­a­bly be need­ed on foren­sic evi­dence, men­tal health, and the back­ground and life his­to­ry of the defen­dant. County tax­pay­ers pick up the costs of added secu­ri­ty and longer pre-trial detention.
  • Jury selec­tion: Because of the need to ques­tion jurors thor­ough­ly on their views about the death penal­ty, jury selec­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es is much more time con­sum­ing and expensive.
  • Trial: Death-penal­ty tri­als can last more than four times longer than non-cap­i­tal tri­als, requir­ing juror and attor­ney com­pen­sa­tion, in addi­tion to court per­son­nel and oth­er related costs.
  • Incarceration: Most death rows involve soli­tary con­fine­ment in a spe­cial facil­i­ty. These require more secu­ri­ty and oth­er accom­mo­da­tions as the pris­on­ers are kept for 23 hours a day in their cells.
  • Appeals: To min­i­mize mis­takes, every pris­on­er is enti­tled to a series of appeals. The costs are borne at tax­pay­ers’ expense. These appeals are essen­tial because some inmates have come with­in hours of exe­cu­tion before evi­dence was uncov­ered prov­ing their innocence.

News & Developments


News

Jun 30, 2025

Hundreds Rally to Urge Commutation of California’s Death Row

On June 26, 2025, more than 200 Californians and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions gath­ered at the state Capitol to urge California Governor Gavin Newsom to com­mute all death sen­tences. Speakers at the gath­er­ing called California’s death penal­ty statute uncon­sti­tu­tion­al and not­ed per­sis­tent evi­dence of racial bias, his­toric ties to lynch­ing, inef­fec­tive pro­tec­tion of inno­cent lives, and high costs. California, home to the nation’s largest death row, is…

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News

Jun 26, 2025

Arizona Legislature Moves Towards Compensating Exonerated Individuals, Including Eleven People Wrongfully Death Sentenced

The Arizona leg­is­la­ture is con­sid­er­ing new leg­is­la­tion that will com­pen­sate exon­er­at­ed indi­vid­u­als. HB 2813 was intro­duced in February by Republican Representative Khyl Powell and eas­i­ly passed in the Arizona House of Representatives in a 591 vote two weeks lat­er. The bill is now await­ing con­sid­er­a­tion by the Senate Judiciary and Elections Committee, and accord­ing to report­ing by the Daily Independent it is being​“con­sid­ered for inclu­sion as part of a final…

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News

Jun 25, 2025

New Book of Interest: The Slow Death” of U.S. Death Penalty

The death penal­ty in the Unites States is expe­ri­enc­ing what schol­ars call a​“slow death.” In their forth­com­ing book,​“The Slow Death of the Death Penalty: Toward a Postmortem,” edi­tors Todd C. Peppers, Jamie Almallen, and Mary Welek Atwell bring togeth­er death penal­ty experts to exam­ine this shift in the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. New death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions still occur in a lim­it­ed num­ber of states; but Peppers et al reflect on the broad­er trends away from use…

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News

Jun 17, 2025

Article of Interest: Maricopa County Investigation: Capital Cases are Costly, Lack Transparency in Charging Decisions, and Rarely End in Death Sentences

A joint inves­ti­ga­tion by ProPublica and ABC15 Arizona reviewed more than 300 cas­es over the past two decades where Maricopa County pros­e­cu­tors sought the death penal­ty and found that only 13% result­ed in death sen­tences. In most cas­es a jury nev­er got close to con­sid­er­ing whether to sen­tence some­one to death: in more than three-quar­ters of cas­es, defen­dants pled guilty in exchange for less­er pun­ish­ment, or pros­e­cu­tors reversed course before tri­al. In only 41 of…

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News

Jun 16, 2025

Governor Says Indiana Will Not Purchase More Lethal Injection Drugs, Invites Debate over Death Penalty

According to Governor Mike Braun (pic­tured), Indiana has deplet­ed the sup­ply of pen­to­bar­bi­tal it uses in its lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. Given that the last of the dos­es pur­chased in December 2024 expired and went unused, Gov. Braun does not intend to renew the state’s sup­ply. According to ear­li­er report­ing by the Indiana Capital Chronicle, the Indiana Department of Correction (IDC) spent $900,000 on pen­to­bar­bi­tal in late 2024 in prepa­ra­tion for the execution of…

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