Quote:
|
Originally Posted by alansmithee
I don't think one is enough. I don't know if 100 or 1000 is enough. There are ocassionally innocent people incarcerated for crimes they don't commit, should the criminal justice system be shut down?
|
Black or white, either leave it open and flawed, or shut it down ?
Why not divert some of the funds expended to incarcerate non-violent convicts
to better funding for legal aid, and pre-case disposition investigators for indigent
defendants, dna testing for inmates who apply for it, (In cases where the evidence to be tested has not been lost or thrown out by prosecutors' offices),
and by a national moratorium of the death penalty, modeled after the Illinois governor's actions in 2000. The cost of death penalty trials and appeals is
much more expensive than incarcerating inmates serving life sentences.
If you counter with the "death penalty is a deterrent" argument, consider that the states of New york and Texas have similar sized populations. New York last executed a condemned inmate in 1963.
In 1990, Texans reported 761 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants, New Yorkers reported 1180. By 2002, Texans reported 578 violent crimes, and
New Yorkers just 496 per 100,000 inhabitants. In that 12 year period, Texas executed approx. 250 convicts, while New York executed none.
<a href="http://bjsdata.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/Search/Crime/State/statebystatelist.cfm">http://bjsdata.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/Search/Crime/State/statebystatelist.cfm</a>
New York is now contemplating eliminating the states's death penalty statute. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17486-2005Feb11?language=printer">http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17486-2005Feb11?language=printer</a>