The total cost of his life there would be approximately $246,900 for the duration of his stay. Today, if he had been forced to live with the general population, sentenced to life without parole, he would cost the state $24,690 per year, as previously reported (“Cost of the Death Penalty” ). Perry wasn't in the best health, but he was quite young when he was convicted. Assuming he lived 35 years after his conviction, that's a total of $864,150 over his lifetime. That's almost four times the amount he spent on death row. Every year it seems that putting prisoners on death row would cost a lot more, but if you do a simple calculation, it's clear that the state could save a little over $600,000 per prisoner sentenced to dead.