Overview
The foundation for the death penalty in the U.S. rests on whether it is necessary as a response to murder. About 40 percent of the states have ended the use of capital punishment. Of the remaining states that retain it, only a few use it on a regular basis. The murder rates of states with and without the death penalty are relevant to whether it is justified. The murder rate for the country as a whole over various time periods is also a barometer of whether or not the public will be in favor of harsher punishments for crime. Murder rates, which are the result of dividing the number of murders by the population of a jurisdiction, can be more useful in comparing states and countries than the absolute number of murders committed.
At Issue
In trying to measure whether the use of the death penalty has an effect on the level of violent crime, researchers often use murder rates and compare them with the practice of the death penalty, either through the number of executions or death sentences. This is problematic on a national basis because the death penalty is not available in many states, and where it is carried out, the executions amount to only a tiny percentage of the murders committed. Even when comparing states, it is difficult to single out whether the relatively rare use of the death penalty is causing a change in crime or whether the change is attributable to other causes such as the rate of employment, the quality of education, or many other local variables.
What DPIC Offers
DPIC has collected statistics published by the FBI on the murder rates in each state for each year, each geographical region, and for the country as a whole. DPIC deepens the analysis by noting whether each state had the death penalty for the time period in question. Murder rates can easily be compared with other available data, such as the number of executions, death sentences, and the size of death row.

Data Sources:
- FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2019 (published Sept. 2020)
- FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2018 (published Sept. 2019)
- FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2017 (published Sept. 2018)
- FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2016 (published Sept. 2017)
- FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2015 (published Oct. 2016)
- FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2014 (published Oct. 2015)
- FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2013 (published Nov. 2014)
- FBI Uniform Crime Reports for earlier years: 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008
News & Developments
News
Nov 15, 2022
Polls: Death Penalty Support Remains Near 50-Year Low Despite Record-High Perception that Crime Has Increased

Two national polls have found that support for capital punishment in the United States remains near half-century lows despite record-high perception that local crime has increased.
Read MoreNews
Jun 09, 2023
New AH Datalytics Data Shows Sharp Decline in Murder Rates in 2023
New data from AH Datalytics shows “sharp and broad decline” in murder rates for 2023. In a recent article published in The Atlantic, Jeff Asher (pictured), a crime analyst based in New Orleans and co-founder of AH Datalytics, writes that the decline in murder rates across the United States is “one of the largest annual percent changes in murder ever recorded.”
Read MoreStories
Nov 08, 2022
DPIC Analysis: Pandemic Murder Rates Highest in Death Penalty States
A DPIC analysis of 2020 U.S. homicide data has found that murder rates during the pandemic were highest in states with the death penalty and lowest in long-time abolitionist states.
Read MoreNews
Feb 24, 2022
Despite Ineffectiveness as Public-Safety Tool, Anti-Abolition Lawmakers Push Bills to Reinstate Death Penalty for Killings of Police Officers
Despite the absence of evidence that the death penalty protects police or promotes public safety, lawmakers in several states that have abolished capital punishment have introduced bills to reinstate capital punishment for the murders of police officers.
Read MoreNews
Oct 22, 2018
Gallup Poll — Fewer than Half of Americans, a New Low, Believe Death Penalty is Applied Fairly
Fewer than half of Americans now believe the death penalty is fairly applied in the United States, according to the 2018 annual Gallup crime poll of U.S. adults, conducted October 1 – 10. The 49% of Americans who said they believed the death penalty was “applied fairly” was the lowest Gallup has ever recorded since it first included the question in its crime poll in 2000. The percentage of U.S. adults who said they believe the death penalty is unfairly applied rose to 45%, the highest since Gallup began asking the question,…
Read MoreNews
Sep 25, 2018
FBI Crime Report Shows Murder Rates Stable in 2017
The FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2017, released by the U.S. Department of Justice, reports that murder rates stabilized across the United States in 2017, decreasing marginally compared to adjusted homicide figures from 2016 but remaining above the record lows recorded earlier in the decade. The initial FBI crime figures for 2017 report 17,284 murders across the United States in 2017, compared to 17,413 in 2016, dropping the nationwide murder rate from 5.4 murders per 100,000 people to 5.3. The homicide numbers are virtually identical to the initial FBI homicide…
Read MoreNews
Feb 28, 2018
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Death Sentences, Executions More Likely in Hamilton County Than Elsewhere in Ohio
With 24 prisoners currently condemned to die, Hamilton County—home to Cincinnati—has the largest death row of any county in Ohio, despite a smaller population and a lower murder rate than other parts of the state. Ten of the 55 prisoners executed in the state since the 1970s were sentenced to death in Hamilton County, again more than any other Ohio county.
Read MoreNews
Jan 12, 2018
Experience Shows No “Parade of Horribles” Following Abolition of the Death Penalty
States that have recently abolished the death penalty have not experienced the “parade of horribles” — including increased murder rates — predicted by death-penalty proponents, according to death-penalty experts who participated in a panel discussion at the 2017 American Bar Association national meeting in New York City. Instead, the panelists said, abolition appears to have created opportunities to move forward with other broader criminal justice reforms.
Read MoreNews
Dec 18, 2017
New Jersey Marks Tenth Anniversary of Abolition of Capital Punishment
On December 17, 2007, New Jersey abolished the death penalty. On the tenth anniversary of abolition, the editorial board of the New Jersey Law Journal writes, “On the Death Penalty, New Jersey Got it Right.” The editorial board wrote, “Abolition has proven its worth, in that there has been no surge of murders, a significant decline of prosecution and appeal expenses, and the elimination of unremediable judicial mistakes. [Abolition] was and remains both the right thing and the sensible thing to have done.” In August 1982, New Jersey reenacted the…
Read MoreNews
Oct 03, 2017
BOOKS: End of Its Rope — How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice
“The death penalty in the United States is at the end of its rope [and] its abolition will be a catalyst for reforming our criminal justice system.” So argues University of Virginia Law Professor Brandon L. Garrett in his widely anticipated new book, End of Its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice, which analyzes the reasons behind the steep decline in capital punishment in over the last 25 years. With the help of other researchers at the University of Virginia, Garrett analyzed death-sentencing data from 1990…
Read MoreNews
Sep 12, 2017
NEW PODCAST: DPIC Study Finds No Evidence that Death Penalty Deters Murder or Protects Police
A Death Penalty Information Center analysis of U.S. murder data from 1987 through 2015 has found no evidence that the death penalty deters murder or protects police. Instead, the evidence shows that murder rates, including murders of police officers, are consistently higher in death-penalty states than in states that have abolished the death penalty. And far from experiencing increases in murder rates or open season on law enforcement, the data show that states that have abolished the death penalty since 2000 have the lowest rates of police officers murdered in…
Read More