CCJJ Subgroup Report On Capital Punishment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Study Confirms Utah’s Death Penalty is a Burden on Taxpayers

$40-million Price Tag for 2 Death Sentences in 20 years

Conservatives appalled by a wasteful and ineffective government program

Utah Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty is calling on state lawmakers to take a close look at the newly released death penalty cost report from the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice (CCJJ).  The report can be read here.

The CCJJ report found that between 1997 and 2016 the state of Utah, as well as local counties, spent nearly $40-million for 165 death-eligible cases, only two of which ended in death sentences.

“This report should give pause to anyone who thought that because capital punishment is so rarely used in Utah that the cost of maintaining a death penalty would be negligible,” said Kevin Greene, State Director of Utah Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty. “We have been spending tons of money without much in return and we hope lawmakers will closely examine the report and agree that the death penalty is anything but fiscally conservative.”

The report confirms what earlier Utah studies have found, which is that Utah’s death penalty is far more expensive than life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“The millions of dollars that we have been wasting on the death penalty should either be returned to the taxpayers in the form of a tax cut or used for crime prevention or to help victims of crime,” Greene said. “The time to repeal our death penalty is now.”

For more information contact Jon Crane at 203-982-4575 or email joncrane@criticalpr.com.