Executing Felons More Costly Than Imprisonment, Study Shows

PRISONS June 1993

The cost of executing felons in North Carolina exceeds the cost of imprisonment, according to a recent, federally-funded study (Rocky Rosen, "Execution Costs More Than Jail -- Study: Death-Penalty Appeals Increase Cost," Durham Herald-Sun, 5/28/93, A1).

The study by Philip Cook and a colleague, both of Duke University, found that the cost of fighting death-penalty appeals in North Carolina drives the cost of execution well beyond that of a non-capital trial leading to life imprisonment. On average, it costs $329,000 more to execute a prisoner than to imprison him following conviction in a non-capital trial.