This page will be dedicated to information on issues related to the storyline in Faith. Please check back here to learn more about the death penalty, the Patriot Act and more.
In the meantime, some links:
Death Penalty Information Center — Information available for each state
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/state_by_state
Amnesty International’s Death Penalty Facts Page
http://www.amnestyusa.org/death-penalty/death-penalty-facts/page.do?id=1101088
“Since 1977, over 1,100 people have been executed in the U.S.; there are currently around 3,300 men and women on death row across the country.”
“What Politicians Don’t Say About the High Costs of the Death Penalty”
by Richard C. Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center
http://www.fnsa.org/v1n1/dieter1.html
” New Jersey, for example, laid off more than 500 police officers in 1991.(8) At the same time, it was implementing a death penalty which would cost an estimated $16 million per year,(9) more than enough to hire the same number of officers at a salary of $30,000 per year.
In Florida, a mid-year budget cut of $45 million for the Department of Corrections forced the early release of 3,000 inmates.(10) Yet, by 1988 Florida had spent $57.2 million to accomplish the execution of 18 people.(11) It costs six times more to execute a person in Florida than to incarcerate a prisoner for life with no parole.(12) In contrast, Professors Richard Moran and Joseph Ellis estimated that the money it would take to implement the death penalty in New York for just five years would be enough to fund 250 additional police officers and build prisons for 6,000 inmates.(13) ”
New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty — New York Exonerees
http://www.nyadp.org/content/new-yorks-exonerees
Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation
http://www.mvfr.org/
“Long before I knew very much about the death penalty I was opposed to it. I just felt that it was wrong for the government to be in the business of killing people. To me killing was wrong regardless if it was by an individual or the state. I was appalled that the taxes I paid could be used to kill someone, thereby making me an unwilling participant in the death of another human being. Often people who knew I was against the death penalty would tell me I wouldn’t be against it if I lost a loved one to murder. I would respond to them by saying I could not say how I would feel in that situation. But I did not believe it was a situation I would ever be faced with.
On May 29, 2000 I received a telephone call that would forever change my life. I was informed by my youngest daughter that her older sister was just shot dead in High Point, North Carolina. My oldest daughter was murdered senselessly by a 19 year-old who was recently released from jail. My daughter was 26 at the time of her death and the mother of two young children. The pain of losing a child regardless of age has got to be the worst feeling possible. My family was never so devastated. Years later we continue to be affected by that tragic day.
People have asked me what my opinion of the death penalty is since my daughter’s murder. I tell them in the days following my daughter’s murder I was in so much pain and turmoil I was not sure how I felt. But after the initial shock wore off and I was able to think clearly again, I realized that the many reasons I was opposed to the death penalty had not changed. Since my daughter’s death I have learned much more about the death penalty and oppose it for even more reasons. When someone says that they support capital punishment for the families they are not speaking for my family.”
–Eddie E. Hicks, Sr., Atlantic County, New Jersey