The death penalty has been a source of heated debate and serious contention for years. Many states differ on their policies and methods and there seems to be no end in sight to resolving the two sides: should we or shouldn't we?

In the state of California in particular, there is a controversy related to the costs to the taxpayers associated with carrying out the death penalty. To put it in perspective, one analysis of the last 30 years of death penalty enforcement in California has cost the state an average of $308 million per incident. This number does include legal fees and the higher cost of security when an inmate is on death row.

As it stands today, California has over 650 individuals on death row, which is much higher than any other state in the country. With the number constantly climbing as more and more people are convicted of capital felonies, the number could reach and surpass the 1000 mark within the next 20 years. This particular analysis expects that this would cost taxpayers close to $9 billion.

One factor in the cost of a death row inmate is the amount of time that it takes the state to actually execute the individual. Though that may sound cold-blooded, it is a fact that the average time before an individual's punishment is actually carried out. This something that those who are in favor of ridding the state of the option of capital punishment definitely see as a problem without a solution if things don't change.

The aforementioned analysis offers a solution to the mounting costs of continuing the death penalty in California. The figures are proposed in a tiered level: the first option would be to continue as such with funding for attorneys and courts increased by $85 million each year. The second option would be to reduce the number and type of felonies for which an individual can be punished with the death penalty. This particular study suggests that this would result in annual taxpayer savings of $55 million. The last option is, of course, to abolish the death penalty completely in the state. This study states that the projected savings would be as high as $1 billion every five or six years.

The savings to the state would be immense, but it doesn't stop the raging debate between two polar opposites. One side wishes to keep capital punishment as an option for the state, while the other believes that it should be done away with entirely. The only way to answer the question definitively would be to put it to a vote of the people of California. After all, it's the taxpayer's money that is going into capital offense convictions, so it should be up to the taxpayers to decide what they would like to be done with their state's budget.