Pew Poll Shows Modest Decline in Death Penalty Support

The Pew Research Center recent­ly released a poll on a vari­ety of social issues, includ­ing the death penal­ty. The poll found that 64% of the U.S. adults sup­port the impo­si­tion of the death penal­ty for per­sons con­vict­ed of mur­der. This is a decline of 14 per­cent­age points from 1996, when 78% of respon­dents said they sup­port­ed it. The Center report­ed that sup­port for the death penal­ty was high­er among men than women, and was sub­stan­tial­ly high­er among whites (69%) than among African Americans (44%) and Hispanics (45%).
(Yahoo News, June 20, 2007; based on Pew Research Center Poll, March 22, 2007). 

See DPIC’s lat­est report, ​“A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts About the Death Penalty.”