State by State Data: Teacher Overview

This overview describes state by state death penal­ty infor­ma­tion and com­par­isons, divid­ed into three sec­tions. ​“Jump to” links with­in each descrip­tion jump direct­ly to that part of this site, or you can return to this top menu.

Interactive US Maps

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The inter­ac­tive maps found on the web­site break down the sta­tis­ti­cal infor­ma­tion by state with regard to eth­nic­i­ty, gen­der, meth­ods of exe­cu­tion, and leg­isla­tive poli­cies with regard to juve­niles and the men­tal­ly retard­ed. They indi­cate those states that do not have the death penal­ty. Numbers of exe­cu­tions and death row inmate pop­u­la­tions are also giv­en in an inter­ac­tive for­mat. The maps pro­vide a visu­al quick view of where and to what extent the death penal­ty is used in the US.

This sec­tion of the site is use­ful for gen­er­al demo­graph­ic com­par­isons, state by state com­par­isons, leg­isla­tive com­par­isons, and the explo­ration of gen­der and eth­nic­i­ty with regard to exe­cut­ed pop­u­la­tions. The state by state sta­tis­ti­cal com­par­isons, described below, will give more detailed infor­ma­tion with regard to the num­ber of death row inmates and the total num­ber of executions.

State by State Summaries

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The state by state sum­maries lists all states which cur­rent­ly have the death penal­ty as a means of pun­ish­ment, the year in which the death penal­ty was reen­act­ed, the year of the first exe­cu­tion after reen­act­ment, a his­to­ry of the meth­ods of exe­cu­tion, and the cur­rent method(s) now in use. In addi­tion to this infor­ma­tion, sum­maries of facts and recent devel­op­ments regard­ing indi­vid­ual states are provided.

State by State Comparisons

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This sec­tion of the site offers users the oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­pare sta­tis­ti­cal infor­ma­tion on the total num­ber of death row inmates and the total num­ber of exe­cu­tions by state. As with the inter­ac­tive maps, this sec­tion of the site is use­ful for demo­graph­ic com­par­isons when used in con­junc­tion with gross pop­u­la­tion num­bers (tak­en from an atlas for example).