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> (except the "life, or worse," I'm firmly against the death penalty but totally fine with letting him sit in a cell in Terre Haute for the rest of his life).

Can I ask why you think this is better? I just did some quick math, and based on the average yearly cost of incarceration for an Adult Male in Indiana at $19,202[1], assuming SBF lives for another 50 years, that's $960,250 of tax payer dollars being used to store someonne that contributes nothing to society. So after he's stolen billions of dollars, we'll spend another million keeping him alive for absolutely no reason whatsoever. It doesn't make sense to me economically or socially. It doesn't even make sense to me as an individual, as I'd much rather just bite the bullet than spend the next few decades looking at concrete walls.

[1] https://faqs.in.gov/hc/en-us/articles/115005238288-How-much-...

discuss

StrictDabbler|3 years ago

It takes millions of dollars to go through the legal process necessary to execute somebody with any confidence in the judgment. It is vastly more expensive than life imprisonment.

It also costs a lot to go through that process and determine that execution is not justified, at which point we're still on the hook for imprisonment.

Putting somebody in jail for life is a bargain in comparison.

[1] https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/NELIS/REL/76th2011/ExhibitDo...

sleepymoose|3 years ago

Whelp, that answered my question! Seems like there's a lot of cost cutting to do across the entire board. I saw an article the other day on here talking about Riker's and it said that 1 inmate costs something like $550,000 annually.

mrep|3 years ago

Somewhat surprisingly, it is actually cheaper to just throw them in prison for the rest of their life then use the death penalty. Like 50% more to a whopping 1000% for California [0].

[0]: https://www.amnestyusa.org/issues/death-penalty/death-penalt...

jrochkind1|3 years ago

Of all the reasons to be in favor of the state calmly killing people, to argue for it because saves money over the alternatives is truly chillingly terrifying to me.

MonkeyClub|3 years ago

> Can I ask why you think this is better? I just did some quick math, [...]

Others are discussing whether your math is correct, but the fact remains: it's murder, we shouldn't be killing people, period.

1123581321|3 years ago

Probably opposition to ending life and/or assigning a positive value to living while incarcerated, rather than making a financial calculation.

kwere|3 years ago

execution should be only for the "lost losers" of society, like school shooters & similia; rich and powerful people who value their own life, time & status would suffer immensily from being demeaned as "simple prisoners"

thatfrenchguy|3 years ago

Life in prison is so much of a harder sentence than death.