NCJ Number
170523
Journal
Crime & Delinquency Volume: 44 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1998) Pages: 245-256
Date Published
1998
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This is a summary of a survey of Tennessee district attorneys general, chief public defenders, and state legislators concerning their attitudes toward capital punishment.
Abstract
Global approval was compared with approval when offered the options of life without parole and life without parole and restitution to the victim's family. Additional items probed approval of capital punishment for specific subpopulations: juvenile, mentally ill, and mentally retarded offenders. Consistent with previous research, support for the death penalty declined when respondents were given the option of life without parole. Other research has found considerable support for the death penalty as a sanction for murder; willingness to apply the sanction varies substantially across types of murder. The death penalty is a complicated issue, too complex and too important to be measured only by a one-item measure. Attitudes toward the death penalty cannot be measured without considering other dimensions of the murders or murderers and the complexity of capital punishment. Tables, notes, references