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DPIC 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 DPIC. 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 DPIC’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 DPIC’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: 51 — 55

Dec 01, 1999

The Death Penalty in 1999: Year End Report

The num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the U.S. in 1999 was the high­est for any year since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. There were 98 exe­cu­tions, one-third of them in Texas. This 44% increase in exe­cu­tions from last year is part­ly the result of a large num­ber of old­er cas­es fac­ing an expe­dit­ed fed­er­al and state appeals process.

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Oct 01, 1999

International Perspectives on the Death Penalty: A Costly Isolation for the U.S.

Western Europe has abol­ished the death penal­ty; Russia com­mut­ed the death sen­tences of all 700 of its con­demned pris­on­ers to life; and the U.N. Commission on Human Rights has called for a mora­to­ri­um on all exe­cu­tions. The num­ber of coun­tries that have stopped imple­ment­ing the death penal­ty has grown to an all-time high of 105.

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Dec 18, 1998

The Death Penalty in 1998: Year End Report

The num­ber of exe­cu­tions in 1998 declined slight­ly from the record num­ber in 1997. As of December 18, there were 68 exe­cu­tions in the U.S., down from 74 peo­ple exe­cut­ed last year (no more are sched­uled this year). About half of the exe­cu­tions occurred in two states: Texas and Virginia. The total num­ber of exe­cu­tions in the U.S. since 1976 reached 500. The num­ber of peo­ple on death row again moved to a record high and now stands at 3,517, though the Bureau of Justice Statistics report­ed a 19% drop…

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Jun 04, 1998

The Death Penalty in Black and White: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Decides

The results of two new stud­ies which under­score the con­tin­u­ing injus­tice of racism in the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty are being released through this report. The first study doc­u­ments the infec­tious pres­ence of racism in the death penal­ty, and demon­strates that this prob­lem has not slack­ened with time, nor is it restrict­ed to a sin­gle region of the coun­try. The oth­er study iden­ti­fies one of the poten­tial caus­es for this con­tin­u­ing cri­sis: those who are mak­ing the crit­i­cal death penal­ty deci­sions in this coun­try are almost exclu­sive­ly white.

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Dec 01, 1997

The Death Penalty in 1997: Year End Report

The num­ber of exe­cu­tions in 1997 eas­i­ly sur­passed the high­est fig­ure for any year since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. As of December 15, 1997, there were 74 exe­cu­tions in the coun­try this year, 18 more than in 1995, the pre­vi­ous record year. The last time more peo­ple were exe­cut­ed in a sin­gle year in the United States was 1955, when 76 peo­ple were exe­cut­ed. The exe­cu­tions this year brought the over­all total since the rein­state­ment of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to 432. The nation­al death row pop­u­la­tion also reached…

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