Believe it or not, but some places don't have the resources to hold people in jail for decades.
If there was a murderer and the place had no way to actually keep the murderer away from the general population, what would you recommend? Just ask the murderer to not murder again?
Even the bankrupt Taliban manages to keep 14k people in their prisons. https://www.voanews.com/a/taliban-refill-afghan-jails/693518...
Burundi's the last on the list of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... and manages prisons, as well.
They're not opting for executions for the cost savings.
Yes, but if they actually jailed all criminals the number would be far higher.
Afghanistan's murder rate is approx 2800 people per year (6.7/100k, population 40 million). Assuming only a 10 year sentence for murder they should have twice as many people in prison -- assuming no other crimes whatsoever, which of course isn't the case.
"They're not opting for executions for the cost savings."
Don't be so sure. I agree with the above commenter - maintaining jails can be prohibitively expensive for undeveloped countries.
We have no clue how many people they are holding in jail and how many are executed. Do you think they could actually hold thousands of additional prisoners who are amongst the most violent?
We also don't know how many of the guards agree with the terrorists. It probably wouldn't be a good thing to have a prison full of terrorists where the guards agree. They likely would "accidentally" let some of them escape.
Which is worse: 100 innocent people being killed by the death penalty or 100 innocent people getting killed by murderers? This is the calculation that many underdeveloped countries have to look at.
Allowing a murderer to live in a country that doesn't have the means to support them will lead to additional suffering of the prisoner (due to less resources), additional suffering of those not in prison (due to additional taxes), and an additional risk to additional murders by the murderer (if they kill other prisoners, guards or escape).
It is easy for people in the first world to say we don't have the need to have the death penalty, but to tell the poorest they are too stupid to know better is kind of arrogant.
I would especially recommend talking to people in the most remote areas of the underdeveloped countries. They literally are unable to keep people in prison.
Over the past few decades, most areas have been solving these issues, but there are still a few areas where there is no alternative.