iven life in prison, studies show that it would definitely be less costly than if they sentenced someone to death. "The most comprehensive study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million per execution over the costs of a non death penalty murder case with a sentence of imprisonment for life" (DPIC Duke University, May 1993). Further studies carried out in Florida, North Carolina and Texas, "estimate the average cost of execution of an inmate is $2.5 million" (Amnesty International 20 ), unlike the approximate $29,000 a year for life imprisonment. All studies show that death sentences by far are more costly when given all the appeal processes and constitutional rights of a defendant. Since we have now established the fact that it is by far more expensive to execute a prisoner then it is to incarcerate, let's further certify that the types of people sentenced to death insinuate that the system itself is bias in their application.The last carried out execution on a Federal level was in 1963. "Since the Supreme Courts decision in Furman v Georgia, the death penalty has been almost exclusively a state right." (DPIC Racial disparities 2) It is common knowledge that minorities are targeted more, arrested more and convicted more - this is further carried into being executed more. "Following the Furman decision, legislatures adopted death sentencing procedures that were supposed to eliminate the influence of race from the death sentencing process." (4). It appears after reading the statistics, that most of the sentences involving white victims where carried out even though the majority of homicides have been black. "Among 1265 cases in which the race of the defendant are known, nearly seven times as many blacks were sentenced to death as were whites." (Bedair 201). This is very disproportionate since the population is only 20 percent black. From a sociological standpoint, it is not necessarily t...
