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NEWS > U.S.A. > TEXAS DEATH ROW TO CUT BACK ON LAST MEALS, FINAL WORDS
TEXAS DEATH ROW TO CUT BACK ON LAST MEALS, FINAL WORDS
April 10 2009
Austin, TX – People are cutting back everywhere. From clipping coupons to turning down the thermostat Americans are learning to adapt the ever worsening economy. While most industries have been affected one way or the other by the downturn, there are a few that have continued to keep a steady pace and remain vital through the hard times. Chief among those is the death industry, but if Texas officials have their way even that once invincible business is going to start to feel the effects of the squeeze.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice has put forth a proposal to Governor Rick Perry that would reduce a number of benefits afforded criminals on death row. Amongst those cuts will be a reduction in prisoner entertainment such as removing televisions from cells. Most controversial among the proposals includes an elimination of final meal requests and limitations put on the length and content of executees final words, similar to the Academy Awards.
“While we recognize that some of these changes will be controversial and will undoubtedly meet with some protest both from the public and from prison officials, the realities of our changing times makes it an absolute necessity in order to meet our financial requirements,” said an official statement from the DCJ. “We will work closely with prison officials to ensure that these new procedures are implemented with the least amount of resistance and controversy to make it easier on all involved. It is not our intent to further punish these criminals, only to be practical in these harsh economic times.”
The new protocol will include standard prison issue meals for the about-to-be executed and a pre-written script for the final words. Five scripts will be made available to the prisoners. None of which will be more than two sentences in length in order to reduce time spent conducting the actual executions.
“A lot of money goes into these events. You have to pay the guards, the greeters for the observers, the actual executioner and that all hits the bottom line. Most of those people are paid by the hour so reducing the amount of time they are there can mean real savings, especially in a state like Texas,” said Scrape TV Crime analyst Willard Weston. “In states with lower numbers of executions your net gain will be limited or non-existent but with the level of production that you see in Texas the dollar savings could be significant.”
Texas conducts approximately one third of all executions across the country, almost quadrupling the next closest state, Virginia. Despite that disparity, officials in Virginia as well as other high production states such as Oklahoma, Missouri and Florida are also looking the Texas system to try and eke a few extra dollars from their ever tightening budgets.
“Hopefully the economy will improve or they may have to look at even more extreme measures to speed up the execution process such as implementing an automated process or even an assembly line mentality where prisoners are injected and just passed along to the cremation chamber. That would likely bring a howl of protests even amongst the most fervent of death penalty supporters mainly due to the jobs that will be lost,” continued Weston. “Death is an ugly business but most people feel it should still be done by people, specifically hard working American people. The last thing anyone wants to see is the erosion of even more jobs in the name of short term savings. The best thing for the economy is that Americans continued to do all the executions, even if they have to do it in a more confined time frame.”
The DCJ expects approval for the new procedures by the Governor sometime next week, hoping to have the new procedures in place for the planned April 30 execution of Derrick Johnson.
Mike Michaels, American Correspondent
NEWS > U.S.A. > TEXAS DEATH ROW TO CUT BACK ON LAST MEALS, FINAL WORDS
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