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State Auditor Finds Proposed California Death Row Facility to Cost Millions More Than Originally Projected

By Judy Kerr
Spokesperson and Victim Liaison
California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

On June 10, the California State Auditor revealed that the cost to construct the CIC (condemned inmate complex) at San Quentin will exceed Corrections' estimate of $356 million by $39.3 million and that the cost to activate the new CIC will reach $7.3 million.

The auditor went on to reveal that projections of the average revised staffing costs to operate the new CIC will increase to $58.8 million per year. This comes to an appalling total of roughly $1.2 billion over the next 20 years.

The report also mentions that the auditors have expressed concerns about the plan to double-cell death row prisoners. The auditor warns that if the plan to double-cell inmates is not a feasible approach, the CIC will reach capacity in 2014. This will occur less than three years after construction is completed.

Stefanie Faucher, Program Director for the San Francisco based non-profit organization Death Penalty Focus, said, “It is shocking and deplorable to think that the state would consider investing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars in the death penalty at a time when it is slashing funds for education, public services and infrastructure. Our limited public safety resources could be better spent on programs that seek to deal with the causes of violent crime and on services for crime victims.”

As the Victim Liaison and Spokesperson for California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, a group made up of individuals who have lost family members and loved ones to homicide, I am horrified that the state continues to pour our precious tax-dollars into a broken death penalty system while tens of thousands of homicides in the state continue to go unsolved. My brother Bob was brutally murdered in 2003, and his killer has yet to be apprehended. Can’t we spend our limited resources on getting more killers off the streets instead of putting just a token handful of them on death row?

It is incomprehensible to me and many other rational minds on both sides of this debate that the state would even consider spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a new death row at a time when a state commission charged with examining the death penalty system is scheduled to release its findings by the end of the month. When will we generate the political will to recognize that all this money we are spending to keep a death penalty which by all measures fundamentally symbolic is not only wasteful but in fact endangers our communities by taking resources away from programs that could actually improve public safety?

To read the State Auditor’s full report, visit: http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2007-120.1.pdf

To learn more about the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice death penalty report due out by June 30th, visit: http://www.ccfaj.org/

Judy Kerr’s brother was brutally beaten in 1993. She is the Spokesperson and Victim Liaison for California Crime Victims for Alternatives to the Death Penalty--a coalition of families, friends, and loved ones of murder victims who oppose the death penalty. The coalition supports families, friends, and loved ones in telling their stories and being heard. CCV educates the public about alternatives to the death penalty and provides information, resources, and support to families regardless of their views on the death penalty or whether the perpetrator has been apprehended.

Posted on June 12, 2008

Comments

As an African American women living in Oakland,whose brother was murdered,I strongly oppose the death penalty. People of color, living in counties that are predominately minority, are disproportionately targeted to be sentenced to death row. Sentencing then becomes based more on geography rather than by a structured formula, which does not exist. Thank God for DNA testing and for those that have been exonerated for this and other reasons but have mercy on those that did not escape the clutches of a broken and unfair system. Thank you
Judy Kerr for shining the spot light on this issue. My hope is that more people will understand how unjust the death penalty is and will call for all new death penalty cases not to be tried. In the meantime, death penalty facilities, and all monies directed towards new death penalty cases should be funneled towards resources that will strengthen our community. We are only as strong as our weakest link. Marginalizing communities based on the color of ones skin needs to become a thing of the past - ASAP.

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