This is what I found for Oregon.
3. Costs of Incarceration
On March 29, 2006 I consulted with Ms. Norma Land of the Public Affairs office of the Oregon Department of Corrections. I asked her the question about costs of incarceration at OSP and whether they break out costs for different living situations of inmates--such as Intensive Management Unit (IMU) or Administrative Segregation (Ad Seg). After checking with the "budget people," she called me back to say that they did not break out costs for various living arrangements of inmates. Average cost per day for an inmate (ADC) is $67.53.
How much, then, would it cost to "house" the defendant under the two scenarios submitted above? Of course, that relates to how long a defendant will live and how long his death penalty appeals will take.
We don't know how long the average inmate will live if he is "LWOPed," but the longest continuous time served in the OSP by any current inmate is 37 years. This inmate, Jerry Brudos, died in the last two months, so it is unlikely that anyone else has served more than 35 consecutive years at the OSP. I am using a number of 40 years as an outer limit of years this defendant might live in OSP, though 30 years might be more accurate. According to actuarial tables widely available on the Net, a male born between 1960 and 1970 in America had a 66.9 year life expectancy at birth. [See http:/.www.efmoody.com/estate/lifeexpectancy.html, last visited April 18, 2006]. Defendant (Sebastian Shaw) is now 39 years old.
Housing an inmate for one year is 365 X $67.53, which equals $24,648.45. in current dollars. Forty years would cost $985,938.00, in current dollars. Thirty years results in a cost of $739,435.50
How about for a person sentenced to death? The Oregon Death Penalty Statute has been in place now for almost 22 years. To date we have executed two men under the statute (1996 and 1997), but both men waived their appeals beyond the mandatory direct appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court, and so their cases are inapposite. No one has yet been executed who has pursued his options fully. What we know is that at least 6 of the men on Death Row committed crimes that are 17 years old or more, and none of them might reasonably be executed in the next 10 years. Some of them, such as Guzek and Rogers, will probably not be executed until around 35-40 years after the crime, if not longer. However, the more recent death penalty cases seem to be moving more quickly, and it may be the case that executions in the future will happen within 20 years of crime. It simply is too early to tell.
Thus, for calculation purposes, a very conservative number of how many years a person will be housed in prison (both county, through trial and OSP) will be 20 years. A more realistic number would be between 22 and 25 years. If we did the math for these we would have the following:
If execution took place after 20 years, the costs for housing would be approximately $492,968 in current dollars. If we used a figure of 25 years, the cost of housing would be approximately $616,208. Thus, depending on which estimate we take, and assuming the inmate would live 40 years at OSP, the "savings" so far by executing a person are either: $492,969 (if 20 years) or $369,730 (if 25 years). If we take the more likely time spent at OSP as 30 years before death (not execution), the "savings" to execute a person are negligble. But then we have to consider the range of appeals open to a person sentenced to death, and the picture changes dramatically.
