Poll Finds Majority Support for Life in Prison Over Death Penalty

A new poll by ABC News and the Washington Post found a major­i­ty (52%) of Americans pre­fer life with­out parole as pun­ish­ment for con­vict­ed mur­der­ers, with just 42% pre­fer­ring the death penal­ty. This is the first time that this poll has found a major­i­ty sup­port for life with­out parole over the death penal­ty. Without an alter­na­tive sen­tence offered, sup­port for the death penal­ty was 61%, equal­ing the low­est lev­el of sup­port in polls going back to the ear­ly 1980s, and show­ing a sig­nif­i­cant drop since sup­port for the death penal­ty peaked at 80% in 1994. Even among those who said they sup­port the death penal­ty in the abstract, 29% pre­ferred the alter­na­tive of life with­out parole when offered a choice between the two pun­ish­ments. In states that do not have cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, respon­dents were more like­ly to pre­fer life with­out parole (58%), with only 38% select­ing the death penal­ty. Among the groups that had stronger than aver­age sup­port for life with­out parole were women (57%), non­whites (65%), and Democrats (67%).

(D. Ergun, ​“New Low in Preference for the Death Penalty,” ABC News, June 5, 2014). See Public Opinion and Life with­out Parole.