[snip]
> What's cheapest? What risk is there to the lives of prison guards in the case of life imprisonment? Which way permits the convict the least opportunity to generate news and provide himself a platform through the media for his voice, which has lost all rights to be heard?
[snip]

I just wanted to focus on this small segment, because there may be a problem with it. I read a report once (a long time ago, and a single source, so I can't really confirm the veracity of it) which stated that executions are usually more expensive than life imprisonment. The costs of the appeals process and the multiple court trials which usually accompany an execution are (supposedly) more expensive than simply feeding and housing the inmate for life. Now, I have heard a counterpoint to that which states that lifers often bring up lawsuits about various things anyway (living conditions and the like) which may add up to make the life imprisonment more expensive once again. In any case, I am not sure about this statistic--I just wanted to bring it up to get people thinking and to see if anyone else knew of such a study.

The other thing I wanted to comment on was the statement about the media and the convict's voice being heard--I may have misunderstood Sam's statement, but if I understand correctly, then I disagree. Perhaps it is because I am in another nation, but Canada is flooded with US media, and up here, we almost never hear anything about/from lifers. We DO, however, hear a fair bit about people on death row. Thus, those on death row generate a short-lived flurry of media exposure, while those imprisoned for life usually sit quietly in their cells--as seen from my perspective, north of the border.

Overall, though, I agree with Sam's points--I just wanted to raise these issues for thought. Perhaps one of our talented "finders of things" could track down statistics on cost of death row versus cost of life imprisonment? I don't want people to waste their time thinking about or discussing these things if I'm just wrong.

Don Monkey