DPIC Reports

Below are reports released by the Death Penalty Information Center since its inception, covering subjects such as race, innocence, politicization, costs of the death penalty, and more. When opening a report, please allow the report page to load fully before selecting links to sections or footnotes. Most of these reports are also available in printed form from DPIC. For a copy of one of these reports, e-mail DPIC. For bulk orders, please download our Resource Order Form.

Reports are separated into Year End Reports, In-Depth Reports, and Special Reports. In-Depth Reports are DPIC's signature long, thorough reports on major death-penalty issues. These include "The 2% Death Penalty," examining geographic arbitrariness in capital punishment, and "Behind the Curtain," covering secrecy in the death penalty system. Special Reports are shorter, and typically address a specific event or question. These include DPIC's explanation of the 2017 spate of executions that were scheduled in Arkansas, and our analysis of the largest number of executions performed on a single day.

Latest


DPIC Year-End Reports

Dec 17, 2019

The Death Penalty in 2019: Year End Report

Capital pun­ish­ment con­tin­ued to with­er across the United States in 2019, dis­ap­pear­ing com­plete­ly in some regions and sig­nif­i­cant­ly erod­ing in oth­ers. New Hampshire became the 21st state to abol­ish the death penal­ty and California became the fourth state with a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. With those actions, half of all U.S. states have abol­ished the…

DPIC Special Reports

Apr 09, 2019

DPIC ANALYSIS: 2018 Exoneration Report Shows Official Misconduct and Perjury Remain Leading Causes of Wrongful Homicide Convictions

The two also were the lead­ing fac­tors con­tribut­ing to wrong­ful homi­cide con­vic­tions, 79.4% of which involved police and/​or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct (54 cas­es) and 76.5% of which involved perjury/​false accu­sa­tion (52 cas­es). Both were present in more than two-thirds of the homi­cide exon­er­a­tions (47 cas­es, 69.1%) in 2018, includ­ing the wrongful…

DPIC Year-End Reports

Dec 14, 2018

The Death Penalty in 2018: Year End Report

(Washington, D.C.) With 25 exe­cu­tions and 42 death sen­tences expect­ed this year, the use of the death penal­ty remained near his­toric lows in 2018, accord­ing to a report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). 2018 marked the fourth con­sec­u­tive year with few­er than 30 exe­cu­tions and 50 death sen­tences, reflect­ing a long-term…