holding them in prison without the possibility of parole (Williams 26). The reason that it costs taxpayers more money to hold a prisoner on death row is because of the appeals process that they go through. A prisoner is always entitled to appeal the court decision and these appeals result in long, drawn-out processes that cost taxpayers millions. If a criminal does not have the money to hire their own attorneys, then it is the taxpayers who pay for the court- appointed lawyers that they have defending them. To give you an idea of the way things are right now in the country, let me give you some statistics. Currently there are 36 states that preserve the death penalty: Twenty-seven states are lethal injection, twelve use the electric chair, seven use the gas chamber, four still use the old technique of hanging, and Utah still use the firing squad, though they only used it once (http://www.smu.edu/~deathpen/). For the many people who want to keep the death penalty, it is the deterrent concern that is the main factor. There is no definite evidence that the death penalty prevents criminals from committing acts of violence. There have been studies that were done to show this result, but there were many holes, which caused the studies to be neglected. Interestingly enough, the studies showed that in some states the execution rate has gone up while the murder rate did not decline; to the contrary, murder rates increased. It also shows that the death penalty states have a higher murder rate than non-death penalty states (Detriot Free Press10 secA). New York Governor George Pataki came up with a theory on deterrence. He said that by bringing back the death penalty in his state, he has taken the fear out of the minds of the people and put it in the minds of the criminal's where it belongs (Pataki 52). Is this logical? How is he to prove that criminals are sane enough at the time to think things through before they com...
