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: 66 — 70

Nov 01, 1994

Millions Misspent: What Politicians Don’t Say About the High Costs of the Death Penalty

Across the coun­try, police are being laid off, pris­on­ers are being released ear­ly, the courts are clogged, and crime con­tin­ues to rise. The eco­nom­ic reces­sion has caused cut­backs in the back­bone of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. In Florida, the bud­get cri­sis result­ed in the ear­ly release of 3,000 pris­on­ers. In Texas, pris­on­ers are serv­ing only 20% of their time and rear­rests are com­mon. Georgia is lay­ing off 900 cor­rec­tion­al per­son­nel and New Jersey has had to…

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May 01, 1994

The Future of the Death Penalty in the U.S.: A Texas-Sized Crisis

Texas is the nation’s fore­most exe­cu­tion­er. It has been respon­si­ble for a third of the exe­cu­tions in the coun­try and has car­ried out two and a half times as many death sen­tences as the next lead­ing state. Death war­rants are being signed at an unman­age­able pace, yet the Texas death row is bulging with unprece­dent­ed num­bers of inmates. But this accel­er­at­ed form of jus­tice comes at a price. The rest of the coun­try should heed the warn­ing of the Texas experience before…

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Dec 31, 1993

Innocence and the Death Penalty: Assessing the Danger of Mistaken Executions

In 1972, when the Supreme Court ruled in Furman v. Georgia that the death penal­ty as then applied was arbi­trary and capri­cious and there­fore uncon­sti­tu­tion­al, a major­i­ty of the Justices expect­ed that the adop­tion of nar­row­ly craft­ed sen­tenc­ing pro­ce­dures would pro­tect against inno­cent per­sons being sen­tenced to death. Yet the promise of Furman has not been ful­filled: inno­cent per­sons are still being sen­tenced to death, and the chances are high that…

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