Gallup Poll: Support for Death Penalty at Lowest Level Since 1972

Support for the death penal­ty in the United States is at its low­est lev­el since November 1972, accord­ing to a Gallup poll released October 25. Gallup report­ed that 60% of respon­dents said they sup­port cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — off one per­cent­age point from last year — while oppo­si­tion remained at 37%, match­ing its high­est lev­el since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penal­ty in 1972. Support has dropped 9 points since 2007 and 20 points since its peak in 1994. The results reflect the same long-term trend of declin­ing sup­port for and increas­ing oppo­si­tion to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment that the Pew Poll found ear­li­er this year. Pew found that sup­port for the death penal­ty had dropped to 49%, mark­ing the first time sup­port had dropped below 50% since 1971. Gallup’s poll this year includ­ed a ques­tion on the per­ceived fair­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. 50% of respon­dents believe the death penal­ty is applied fair­ly, the low­est lev­el in the ques­tion’s 17-year his­to­ry, and 44% believe it is applied unfair­ly, the high­est lev­el in 17 years. Gallup tied the poll results to larg­er trends, say­ing, ​“This is reflect­ed in, or per­haps the force behind, changes in death penal­ty laws in recent years, with a total of 12 states abol­ish­ing the death penal­ty or impos­ing a mora­to­ri­um in the last decade alone.” Gallup did not include infor­ma­tion on lev­els of sup­port for the death penal­ty by age, race, sex, reli­gion, or polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion as part of its state­ment on the 2016 poll and did not ask respon­dents which pun­ish­ment they found more appro­pri­ate for mur­der: the death penal­ty or life with­out parole. Polling this year in California, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oklahoma indi­cates that, when asked that pol­i­cy ques­tion, more Americans favor life with­out parole over the death penalty.

(J. Jones, ​“U.S. Death Penalty Support at 60%,” Gallup, October 25, 2016; ​“Gallup Historical Trends: Death Penalty,” Gallup, last vis­it­ed October 26, 2016.) See Public Opinion.