DPI 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 DPI. 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 DPI’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 DPI’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.
 

Reports: 46 — 50

Dec 17, 2007

The Death Penalty in 2007: Year End Report

Two dra­mat­ic events this year sym­bol­ized the broad changes that have been occur­ring in the death penal­ty around the coun­try. Executions halt­ed after September 25 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a chal­lenge to the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the mix­ture of chem­i­cals used in lethal injec­tions in Kentucky (Baze v. Rees). This de fac­to mora­to­ri­um on lethal injec­tions con­tributed to the fewest num­ber of executions…

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Jun 09, 2007

A Crisis of Confidence: Americans’ Doubts About the Death Penalty

According to a nation­al pub­lic opin­ion poll con­duct­ed in 2007, the pub­lic is los­ing con­fi­dence in the death penal­ty. People are deeply con­cerned about the risk of exe­cut­ing the inno­cent, about the fair­ness of the process, and about the inabil­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to accom­plish its basic pur­pos­es. Most Americans believe that inno­cent peo­ple have already been exe­cut­ed, that the death penal­ty is not a deter­rent to crime, and that a mora­to­ri­um should be placed…

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Dec 14, 2006

The Death Penalty in 2006: Year End Report

The use of the death penal­ty in the U.S. con­tin­ued to decline in 2006, con­sis­tent with a pat­tern over the past six years. Executions dropped to their low­est lev­el in 10 years as many states grap­pled with prob­lems relat­ed to wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the lethal injec­tion process. The num­ber of death sen­tences and the size of death row are also decreas­ing. And for the first time, the Gallup Poll report­ed that more peo­ple sup­port­ed a sen­tence of life with­out parole over…

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Dec 15, 2005

The Death Penalty in 2005: Year End Report

The year 2005 may be remem­bered as the year that life with­out parole became an accept­able alter­na­tive to the death penal­ty in the U.S. Texas became the 37th out of 38 death penal­ty states to adopt this option for its juries. New York’s leg­is­la­ture did not restore the death penal­ty after it was found uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, leav­ing life with­out parole as the pun­ish­ment for cap­i­tal mur­der. Across the coun­try, the num­ber of death sen­tences dropped to record lows and some of…

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Oct 18, 2005

Blind Justice: Juries Deciding Life and Death With Only Half the Truth

Blind Justice, the most recent report to be released by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), is the first to focus on the prob­lems of the death penal­ty from the per­spec­tive of jurors. While jurors have always occu­pied an esteemed posi­tion in the broad­er crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in the United States, in cap­i­tal cas­es the respon­si­bil­i­ty of jurors is even more crit­i­cal as they decide whether defen­dants should live or die. Even with this unique author­i­ty in capital…

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