In the United States, the death penalty is currently authorized in one of five ways: firing squad, hanging, gas chamber, electrocution, and lethal injection. Capital punishment is a legal, practical, philosophical, social, political, and moral question. Most of us assume that we execute murderers primarily because we believe it will discourage others from becoming murderers. The fear of death deters people from committing crimes. Abolitionists claim that capital punishment does not deter murderers from killing or killing again. They base most of their argument against deterrence on statistics. States that use it extensively show a higher murder rate than those that have abolished the death penalty. Also, states that have abolished the death penalty and then reinstituted it show no significant change in the murder rate. Most retentionists (people for capital punishment) argue that none of this statistical evidence proves that capital punishment does not deter potential criminals. There is absolutely no way to prove how many would be murderers there would be. They point out that the murder rate in any given state depends on many things besides whether or not that state has capital punishment. They cite such factors as the percentage of urban residents in the state, the level of economic prosperity, and the social and racial makeup of the population. But a small minority is ready to believe in these statistics and to abandon the deterrence argument. But they defend the death penalty base on other arguments; depending on the need to protect society from killers who are considered high risks for killing again.
Abolitionists say the cost of execution has become increasingly expensive and that life sentence is more economical. A study of the Texas criminal system estimated the cost of appealing capital murder at $2,316,655. This high cost includes $265,640 for the trial; $294,240 for the state appeals; $113,608 for federal appeals over six years; and $135,875 for death row housing.
