“The FBI has found that states with the death penalty have the highest murder rates” (Bedau). Although the death penalty has not been proven to deter crime, it is still considered an option for lowering crime rates. Other countries such as Japan, India, Thailand, and many Caribbean islands, such as Barbados, do not have a strong commitment to the death penalty as a deterrent to crime. The death penalty is very expensive even for a single execution. Sending someone to death row in Florida, the state with the largest number of people on death row, would cost about $3.2 million overall (Bedau 16). It would cost about $16,000 for someone to be locked up in a state prison every year (Hood 84). It is cheaper to punish someone with life imprisonment than to convict criminals