Sahagun 1

Oscar Sahagun

Professor Brody

English 301

2/20/19

Americas misaligned Priorities

There is no question that the United States has an issue in which they conduct their

money to govern this country to provide its citizens with opportunities where they can strive and

provide bright futures for future generations to come. Lack of investing in the right issues is one

of many problems that the United States faces till this day. One of these problems is the vast

amount of money that is spent on the country’s correctional facilities. Harry Alford, a writer for

The Philadelphia Tribune, wrote in his article “Since the 1970s the state of California has built

more prisons than schools”. In doing so not enough people are receiving the proper education

that could in fact keep them out of prison or committing crime to begin with. Instead more

people are committing crime and in some instances are sent to death row where they are sent to

die in prison. This is one of the worst investments the United States is making.

In 2011, Randall Jensen a writer for The Bond Buyer in New York wrote an article

describing how there was a plan in which the state of California was trying to remodel the death

row wing in the San Quentin Prison located in Marin County, California. According to Jensen,

the plan was to cost the state of California 365 million dollars to build and an additional 1.6

billion for the next ten years. Luckily the governor of California Jerry Brown did not allow this

vast amount of money to be spent as he saw this would cripple the already weak school systems
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in the state as the plans to build the prison alone cost 19 million dollars (Jensen, 2011). This

would have financially crippled California for years to come even more so since it was already

spending millions of dollars on its death row facilities. Since the year 1976 there have been 13

people sentenced to death in the state of California which cost the taxpayers 114 million dollars a

year (New York Times, 2009). What is more shocking is the fact that the cost per execution was

about 250 million dollars (New York Times, 2009). The amount of money being spent on the

death penalty is outrageous due to the amount of good that can come from it. There are several

issues that would benefit from this rather than having it to put someone to death. Such issues can

vary from anywhere as helping the homeless or even providing some sort of financial help to low

income schools in a poor community. This I believe is one of the issues that a lot of good can

come from because most of the crimes being committed are in these poor areas where people

believe that there is no other way to improve their future. Another example where the money

can be used would be to giving raises to teachers as well. The money being used to sentenced

people to death can provide more support to teachers and hire possible officers to be stationed on

school property for safety.

Although California is the most extreme case when it comes to cost of sentencing

someone to death row as the courts have ruled cuts to schools, health care, parks and social

services (New York Times, 2009). This however, does not rule out other states that as well spend

a large sum of money when sentencing someone to death. Such examples include states such as

Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, and also New Jersey (Mclaughlin, 2014). The cost of

sentencing people to death in these states has caused a wide range amount of voters to try and

abolish the death penalty in order to use that money for things to help better the state as a whole.

The reason being is because they have noticed the vast amount of money they can save if they
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were to abolish it. The state of Florida alone could save 51 million dollars alone from keeping

these inmates in prison under life without parole rather than sentencing them to death (New York

Times, 2009). Some of these ideas for using the money saved range from being able to hire

more police officers and to help the funding of solving case that have were never resolved to

even helping the families of the victims. More recently there have been states that were

successful in their mission to abolish the death penalty from their state. The two more recent

states that were successful were New Mexico and New Jersey (Cook, 2009). The rest of the

states should try and pursue the same goal as New Mexico and New Jersey in abolishing the

death penalty. It is an issue that should be seen as an opportunity to try and resolve certain

problems that may need more attention rather than having to sentence a few people to death. The

question that they should be asking is what can they do to minimize the amount of people

committing these crimes that are sentencing them to death row. Providing better education and

more resources to citizens living in poor communities would benefit from this as it can possibly

help keep future criminals out of prison and possibly out of death row as well.

The fact that most voters in states are beginning to be more aware of the amount of

money that they invest into the death penalty is a step on to the right direction so that hopefully

one day they can completely abolish the death penalty and use that money for better use.

Although, many voters are becoming aware this does not mean that others are aware of the

problem. In 2012 there was a proposition named prop 34 where if it were passed, then it would

have ended the death penalty in California and sentenced the accusers to life in prison without

the possibility of parole. Unfortunately the proposition was not passed because the media did a

poor job of trying to inform voters of the problem. The campaigns only raised about 7.5 million

dollars to try and inform voters of the issue but only were able to afford thirty seconds of airtime.
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Unfortunately the commercials were not beneficial as they talked about wrongful convictions

instead of the amount of money that goes into death row (Mclaughlin, 2014). It was not until the

bill was not approved that many voters then realized how much money is invested when sending

someone to death row. In 2011 there was a California field poll where the goal was to ask voters

if they actually knew the cost of the death penalty and the results were shocking as 41 to 43

percent of the population believed that it would be cheaper for the state to sentence the accusers

to death rather than keeping them in jail without the possibility of parole (Mclaughlin, 2014).

All states have the duty and responsibility to try and inform their voters of the issues at hand with

their home state. With voters being more aware of the issues then more than likely they would

vote to resolve issues that would benefit the state as a whole. If issues are being resolved then not

only would it benefit the people living today but also the future generations to come.

There is without a doubt that the United States of America needs to do a better job with

providing its citizens with the best scenarios available in order for them to strive. The way to

accomplish this goal is choosing the right issues to address and using the tax payers’ money to

where it would benefit the citizens as a whole. There are several of issues that can be addressed

with the use of the money that can be saved if every state were to abolish the death penalty. Such

examples include are giving school teachers better pay, using the money to help better schools in

order to educate future generations to come, and to have an officer placed on each school

property to try and help lower the chances of there being a school shooting again. In order to

accomplish these goals we need to educate the voters of each state of the issues that are

occurring in order for them to vote for the best outcome. If they are educated then possibly the

right government officials would be elected who can also guide us to a better tomorrow.
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Schmitt, J., Warner, K., & Gupta, S. (2010). The High Budgetary Cost of Incarceration. IDEAS Working

Paper Series from RePEc, IDEAS Working Paper Series from RePEc, 2010.

McLaughlin, J. (2014). THE PRICE OF JUSTICE: INTEREST-CONVERGENCE, COST, AND THE ANTI-DEATH

PENALTY MOVEMENT. Northwestern University Law Review, 108(2), 675-710.

Roman, J., Chalfin, A., & Knight, C. (2009). Reassessing the Cost of the Death Penalty Using Quasi-

Experimental Methods: Evidence from Maryland. American Law and Economics Review, 11(2), 530-574.

Connor, E. (2010). THE UNDERMINING INFLUENCE OF THE FEDERAL DEATH PENALTY ON CAPITAL

POLICYMAKING AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION IN THE STATES. The Journal of Criminal Law

and Criminology (1973-), 100(1), 149-212.

Jensen, R. (2011). Brown Kills $356M Plan for New California Death Row. The Bond Buyer, 376(33509), 4.

High Cost of Death Row. (2009). New York Times (1923-Current File), p. A22.