NCJ Number
183782
Date Published
May 2000
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This document examines questions about the fallibility, fairness, and funding of the death penalty.
Abstract
It is debatable whether the death penalty deters murderers or is simply violence that begets more violence. Crime rates are affected by so many factors--including demographics, the economy, and even the weather--that coming to a cause-and-effect conclusion about the death penalty is impossible. Nationally, overall rates of violent crime have declined from a peak in the early 1990's. In 1998, violent crime rates were at about the 1980 level, which is still twice that of the 1960's. This report discusses states’ actions with regard to the death penalty; racial factors; raising the stakes for appeals; more executions by lethal injection; death penalty chronology from 1972 to 1996; deciding life or death; continuing strong public support for the death penalty (as of 1999: 71 percent in favor, 22 percent against, and 7 percent no opinion); and countries out of step with the world view. It also presents 1998 statistics on murder rates per 100,000 population in States with and without the death penalty. Tables