NCJ Number
166063
Date Published
1995
Length
7 pages
Annotation
A new national opinion poll reveals that more people would choose a sentence of life without parole plus restitution to the victim's family over capital punishment for first-degree murder.
Abstract
However, 45 States plus the District of Columbia currently have a life sentence with no possibility of parole for at least 25 years. Thirty-three of those jurisdictions use a life sentence in which parole is never possible. However, people believe that even the most dangerous murderers will be released in 7 years if they are not executed. The survey revealed that support for capital punishment becomes a minority opinion when the public is presented with a variety of alternative sentences. From all indications the public would be safer without capital punishment and would achieve an enormous cost savings as well due to the lengthy trials and years of appeals in these cases. However, people are frightened by media accounts of parole consideration for notorious criminals, although they were not sentenced under a life-without-parole program. Some argue that capital punishment is needed to assuage the grief of the victims' families. That may be true for some families. However, in a country with 25,000 murders and 25 executions per year, only 1 in 1,000 families will actually receive such a benefit. Many victims' families oppose the death penalty. The current support for capital punishment results from ignorance of the alternatives and the sentencing changes that have already taken place.