I'll Take the Death Penalty Please

The death penalty is a very controversial issue. Not only is it a debate whether is morally correct to put someone to death or not, but its also about the costs and length of being sent to death row. With California’s Death Row reputation, its not wonder that a convicted offender would opt to be sentenced to death rather than serve a regular life term at a regular prison. Why? Because apparently death row inmates have a better lifestyle in prison than do other inmates. And lets not forget that California has a hard time killing an inmate.

In an article by the Los Angeles Times, a man convicted of murder asked for the death penalty because the living conditions at San Quentin were better than at any other prison. California has the largest Death Row population in the Nation, yet since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1977 there have only been 13 executions, and the murderers just keep coming in but no one comes out. We all wonder why it takes so long for an execution to occur in California and why we can’t be like other states and execute people left and right. Well, one reason is because the appeal processes take many years. Another is that executions in this state are on hold because the lethal injection method has been under review for the last four years.

Life in San Quentin State Prison is unlike life in any other state prison; inmates have certain privileges that in other prisons they wouldn’t have. They stay in single-bed cells, can talk on the phone more often, have televisions and radios, and have better food. Everyone knows living conditions on death row are not so bad so its not surprising that murderers prefer to spend their lives on death row, where they are more likely to die of natural causes than executions (CDCR).

Maybe its time to consider whether California should really have the Death Penalty because we are not using it. We say we have it but we are not executing anyone we are spending more money than needed on keeping these death row inmates.