Resolved: The United States of America should abolish the Death Penalty

I will refer to the Death Penalty and other terms in this debate using different wordsLegendDP= Death PenaltyLWP= Life without ParoleCost The use of Capital Punishment is very expensive in many states. On average every Death Penalty case costs about 3 million dollars. This is very expensive to compared to Life Without Parole, since that costs about 1.1 million dollars. This trend is noticeable in my states. Washington: On average, a death penalty case cost over 1 million more than it would in a LWP case. ($3.07 million, versus $2.01 million) Nevada: The average DP case cost 1.3 million, while cases with the DP cost 775,000.California: is one of the huge spenders for the Death penalty. This graph shows the costs. It is estimated that if California switched to LWP, the the state would save about 170 million per year, and over 5 billion over the next 20 years. There are many states which notice this trend, but overall, the Death Penalty is far more expensive than Life Without Parole. It's wasteful government spending, and a cheaper alternative would be Life Without Parole. In the source I provided, there are more states in which the DP is cheaper. States would be saving a lot of money if they abolished the DP. Criminalogists such as Richard Dieter have concluded "The death penalty is turning into a very expensive form of life without parole. At a time of budget shortfalls, the death penalty cannot be exempt from reevaluation alongside other wasteful government programs that no longer make sense." With such a high budget, the DP is killing states, and they would either be forced to cut spending, or abolish the DP. If they go with cuts, then things like law enforcement will also receive cuts, which would increase crime.Ineffective at reducing crime The DP is not effective in reducing crime rates. Several older studies show that this was the case, however there is not clear correlation for this, and there aren't any studies that show it is still effective in reducing the crime rates. According to the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, an organzation that collects dettterence theories, the DP had no significant detterence in crime. In a survery done, 88% of criminologists believed that the Death Penalty had no effect on the crime rate. Several other respected criminologists have come to the same conclusion. Jeffrey Fagan, a professor of law at Columbia University in the US, told Fact Check he believed that there was no evidence that showed the death penalty deterred. Professor Fagan, who appeared as an expert witness for Mr Chan and Mr Sukumaran in an unsuccessful appeal in 2007, said there was "no credible scientific evidence that the death penalty deters criminal behaviour". In North Carolina, it has been realized that the DP does not reduce crime. Yet, according to the N.C. Department of Justice, the state murder rate has declined in the years since executions stopped. Given this fact, there is no credible argument that the death penalty deters crime. In a survery done in 2008, the majority of police chiefs said the insufficient use of the DP was the least likely reason for the crime rates, and that increasing the number of law enforcement would be far effective. Fifty-seven percent of the chiefs polled said they agreed with the statement that the death penalty does little to prevent violent crimes because perpetrators rarely consider the consequences when engaged in violence. Innocent LivesThe huge problem with the Death Penalty is that it runs the risk of executing an innocent person. Since 1973, 173 people were found to be innocent in death row, and were released. This is a lot of people that could have have been executed. There have been 13 cases where there was some suspiscion whether that person was innocent. In the US, there have been around 16 wrongful convictions of people which resulted in executions, then posthumously, they were declared innocent. This certainly violates an American's basic freedom. "The right to live". Even in a LWP case, the innocent still has a chance to live his life, but in this case, his right is violated simply for an ancient punishment. ConclusionI believe I have shown why the DP should be abolished. I have shown it's far more costly than non- Death Penalty cases, and there is not credible evidence that shows it reduces crime, infact alternatives such as increasing the # of lawn enforcement is preferred by my police chiefs. On top of that, it risks the chance of executing innocent lives.Links http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...;http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...http://www.foxnews.com...http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org...http://nccadp.org...