The death penalty.

[badgenome]

Khuutra said:

badgenome said:

There's a great deal more deliberation (and often many more appeals) when it's a capital case, though. In North Carolina, it costs something like $2.5 million just to bring about such a case. A Duke University study from '93 put the total cost of execution at $163,000 more than a 20 year stretch in the slammer; if it's like everything else, that discrepancy has probably grown rather than shrunk over the last 17 years.

Very interesting, though that 20 year stretch in the slammer is not the same as a literal life sentence (which I believe was the point of contention), which can last for three or four decades.

That's true. I've not found anything else comparably academic on more extended prison stays, just stuff that looks suspiciously like anti-death penalty propaganda. Either way, the savings from killing someone vs. feeding and housing them for a few decades clearly aren't what they'd seem at first blush.