If you are current or former law enforcement:

...it is just absurd that we would pull officers from the streets and at the same time spend millions of dollars to have a death penalty system that has not been proven to prevent crime.

I now understand that the death penalty is an ineffective, cruel and simplistic response to the complex problem of violent crime. Our limited resources could be better spent on programs that focus on stopping violence before it starts, such as preventing child abuse and drug addiction – programs that will prevent another child from becoming the next [murderer].

What does the death penalty do for us? Without any deterrent value, it certainly is not an effective law enforcement tool. Effective law enforcement and crime prevention requires precious resources that are being wasted on this ineffective and broken program.

Eliminating the death penalty...will not hinder the prosecutorial capacity to seek, or the court’s ability to impose, ‘life without parole’ sentences for serious, heinous crimes and criminals.

A well-managed prison with proper classification and staffing can create incentives for lifers to behave while segregating and punishing those who are a threat before violence ever occurs... Prison safety depends on proper staffing, equipment, resources and training. Certainly the money spent on trying to put someone to death for over 20 years could find better use in addressing those practical needs of our correctional system.

Do we want more lawyers arguing in court, or more cops on the street? Do we want longer trials, or better victim services? Do we want to kill an unlucky few (not necessarily the worst), or do we want to help troubled kids before they end up hurting someone? In the real world, these are the choices we must make.

The death penalty won't bring my brother back or help to apprehend his murderer. We need to start investing in programs that will actually improve public safety and get more killers off the streets.

We need to acknowledge that the death penalty is broken beyond repair.

It is a hoax on the families of murder victims, on the public at large and on myself as a prosecutor in this state. It is a punishment that does not deliver the justice it promises, prolongs the suffering of those who have lost a loved one and does nothing to actually enhance public safety.

A trial seeking life without parole is far speedier than a death penalty case and costs far less. By pursuing life without parole sentences instead of death, resources now spent on the death penalty prosecutions and appeals could be used to investigate unsolved homicides, modernize crime labs, and expand effective violence prevention programs.

The moral and monetary investment of the death penalty is significantly greater than the return to society.

Prosecutors must reveal the dirty little secret they too often share only among themselves: The death penalty actually hinders the fight against crime.

...the truth of the matter is that if you favor the death penalty, you're not being tough on crime. It has nothing whatsoever to do with, as far as we can tell, as far as anybody can tell, on the affect on crime. Zero. Zip. It's just irrelevant. It's tough on the taxpayers. It's tough on the budget. That's what its tough on.

When I was a prosecutor there were two other prosecutors in my office that worked on a death penalty case for the entire two years that I was there. Without the death penalty on the books, those two prosecutors could have prosecuted 200 violent criminals each within that time frame. Imagine that, 400 violent criminals off the street -- instead, they worked on a death penalty case that never resulted in death.

...the death penalty is not an effective law enforcement tool in practice. It is a distraction from justice.

I have experienced countless violent crime scenes... Of the accused murderers my fellow officers and I have brought to justice, I do not believe any of them was deterred in the least by Nebraska’s death penalty.

The death penalty exacts a terrible price in dollars, lives and human decency. Rather than tamping down the flames of violence, it fuels them while draining millions of dollars from more promising efforts to restore safety to our lives.

As the warden of San Quentin, I presided over four executions. After each one, someone on the staff would ask, ‘Is the world safer because of what we did tonight?' We knew the answer: No.

It is now nearly seven years since my brother Bob's murder. His killer is still walking the streets. My message and voice are focused on dispelling the delusion that the death penalty keeps us safe. We are wasting millions each year sentencing a few aging convicts to death while thousands more murders each year remain unsolved and tens of thousands of family members like me are left with little hope for any justice.

I have seen the ugliness of murder up close and personal. But I have never heard a murderer say they thought about the death penalty as consequence of their actions prior to committing their crimes.

We bow to no one in our support for tough law enforcement policies. We believe, however, that tough law enforcement policies must also be smart and effective. After much study and deliberation, we have come to believe that Maryland's death penalty is neither smart nor effective. Nor, because it is necessarily imposed in an inconsistent manner, is it tough.

Spending all this money on the death penalty might be worth it - if it actually made our communities safer. But it doesn't… Our communities would be exponentially better off by reinvesting the time, money and resources we spend on trying to get a few people executed into crime prevention measures that work.

During my 30 years as a Maryland prosecutor, I saw the death penalty system up close. I sent 12 defendants notices to prepare for a capital trial, tried six of them, and obtained death penalty verdicts in two. The crimes were cruel and the killers were wicked. I believed that if we are to have a death penalty, they deserved it. I have changed my mind.

[T]he commitment of time, money and man power necessary for a capital case is enormous and it takes from other cases. But I think what bothers me most is that it offers to the families of the victims and the survivors a false sense of closure.

Unfortunately, no state treasury has a bottomless pit of law enforcement dollars. In making choices about the most effective way to spend them, the death penalty would be last on my list.

As a police chief, I find this use of state resources offensive... Give a law enforcement professional like me that $250 million, and I'll show you how to reduce crime. The death penalty isn't anywhere on my list.

The death penalty makes no sense as a law enforcement tool. Any law enforcement officer will tell you that it has no deterrent effect. Coupled with how much time, energy and money we pour into the death penalty system, it is nothing but a burden on prosecutors, the courts and the taxpayers. If we get rid of the death penalty, prosecutor's offices and the courts would be more effective and the public will be safer as a result.

I do know, though, the effect of the death penalty on the staff working in the death house. I remember quite clearly PK Kelly who... talked about how he had to kill people and he was never sure whether the person he was killing was innocent or guilty. It had a terrible impact on him and the other workers in the death house. Many of them drank excessively.

I have inquired for most of my adult life about studies that might show that the death penalty is a deterrent. And I have not seen any research that would substantiate that point.

I think I could prove to you that I could put someone in the Waldorf Hotel for 60 to 70 years and feed them three meals a day cheaper than we can litigate a single death penalty case.

California spends $137 million per year to fund our death penalty system. The same amount could instead be used to hire an additional 1,780 criminal investigators or 2,132 crime lab technicians in order to solve more murders.

We've had the death penalty since 1994, and we continue to pay for the process with little results... But we continue to cut the programs that could prevent these types of crimes.

If you do back-of-the-envelope calculations, it becomes clear that no rational criminal should be deterred by the death penalty, since the punishment is too distant and too unlikely to merit much attention. As such, economists who argue that the death penalty works are put in the uncomfortable position of having to argue that criminals are irrationally overreacting when they are deterred by it.

I think law enforcement thinks [the death penalty is] a joke and that's probably why 1 percent thinks it's effective. It takes too long and there's too many people on death row that never get put to death.

Continuing to spend millions of dollars to take a murder defendant who has already been caught and subject him to death rather than life without parole will not prevent the next murder. Redirecting money to more vigorously apprehend and prosecute armed robbers, rapists, burglars, and those who commit gun crimes will prevent murders and save lives.

I've been in this system for over 40 years. I’ve been held hostage and been through multiple prison riots. If someone told me that the death penalty would protect me as a corrections officer, I would be offended. Safety inside prisons depends on proper staffing, programming, and effective reintegration of inmates back into society. The death penalty does not safeguard anybody.

The death penalty throws millions of dollars down the drain – money that I could be putting directly to work fighting crime every day – while dragging victims' families through a long and torturous process that only exacerbates their pain.

The state can protect many more officers at a fraction of the cost by adding police, providing the best protective equipment available, and implementing effective policing programs known to reduce crime. The death penalty is simply a distraction from the real issues surrounding public safety.

While serving as a Prosecutor I allowed myself to believe, based on certain studies, that the death penalty was a meaningful deterrent to crime… I could not have been more wrong…In an effort to exact the ultimate punishment of society's most heinous criminals we have created a labyrinth of laws, procedures and endless appeals which, of necessity, drain precious resources from the legitimate goals of our law enforcers.

I don’t believe there is a single qualified prison warden in this country that wouldn’t trade the death penalty for more resources to keep his or her facility safe. The death penalty system is just a drain on those resources, and it serves no purpose in the safety of the public or prisons.