Capital Punishment 1994

• NCJ Number: 153367
• Journal: Corrections Compendium Volume: 19 Issue: 11 Dated: (November 1994) Pages: 8-16
• Author(s): A Wunder
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 9 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Forty-seven systems from the United States (including the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the District of Columbia) and 11 Canadian systems responded to a survey on the death penalty; the survey deadline was July 27, 1994.

Abstract

Information for each jurisdiction addresses whether the system has the death penalty, the execution method, whether there have been any changes in the method of execution since 1976, the number of executions since 1976, whether there is a designated death row, how death sentence inmates are housed, whether death sentence inmates are allowed in the general prison population, problems with death row and death sentence inmates. Information is also provided on States without the death penalty, and countries with and without the death penalty are listed. There were 38 executions in the United States in 1993. In Canada, Federal legislation abolished the death penalty for all the Provinces, and provincial governments have jurisdiction only over crimes punishable by a prison sentence of two years minus 1 day; all other sentencing falls under the jurisdiction of Correctional Service of Canada. In the United States, each State has had to create its own death penalty legislation within the boundaries set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of cases in the 1970's. Currently, the majority of corrections systems in the United States (including the Federal Bureau of Prisons) have the death penalty. As of July 1994, 14 of those States with capital punishment had no executions since 1976. The majority of death penalty States have a specific unit for housing inmates under sentence of death. Since 1976 there have been 237 executions in 20 of the death penalty States that responded to the survey. Lethal injection is the most common method of execution. Only three States continue to practice execution by hanging; one State uses the firing squad; and two States use the gas chamber.