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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: 6 — 10

Oct 14, 2022

Deeply Rooted: How Racial History Informs Oklahoma’s Death Penalty

Oklahoma’s death penal­ty is at a cross­roads. On August 25, 2022, Oklahoma exe­cut­ed the first per­son in a series of 25 exe­cu­tions set to occur near­ly every month through 2024. The pro­ject­ed increase in exe­cu­tions in Oklahoma comes while the death penal­ty is in decline nation­wide; 2021 had the fewest exe­cu­tions since 1988. Furthermore, Oklahoma’s planned exe­cu­tions are sched­uled to move for­ward despite evi­dence that there are seri­ous prob­lems with Oklahoma’s death penal­ty that the state has…

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Jul 01, 2022

DPIC 2022 Mid-Year Review: Geographic Isolation of Death Penalty Continues Amidst Eight-Year Trend of Minimal Use

Long-term trends con­tin­ued in the first half of 2022, with new death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions both on pace for con­tin­ued his­toric lows. Use of the death penal­ty was con­fined to a small num­ber of states that have his­tor­i­cal­ly been heavy users of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The unavail­abil­i­ty of exe­cu­tion drugs and the inabil­i­ty of states to com­pe­tent­ly car­ry out exe­cu­tions con­tin­ued to shape exe­cu­tions and poli­cies across the coun­try, as pris­on­ers con­tin­ued to chal­lenge lethal-injec­tion pro­to­cols and…

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Dec 16, 2021

The Death Penalty in 2021: Year End Report

Key Findings Virginia becomes 23rd state, and first in the South, to abol­ish the death penal­ty Seventh con­sec­u­tive year with few­er than 30 exe­cu­tions and 50 new death sen­tences New study finds one exon­er­a­tion for every 8.3 exe­cu­tions Federal exe­cu­tion spree ends, new admin­is­tra­tion halts all fed­er­al exe­cu­tions and announces policy…

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Jul 01, 2021

DPIC 2021 MID-YEAR REVIEW: Virginia’s Historic Death Penalty Abolition Accompanies Continuing Record-Low Death Penalty Usage in First Half of Year

The first half of 2021 spot­light­ed two con­tin­u­ing death-penal­ty trends in the United States: the con­tin­u­ing ero­sion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in law and prac­tice across the coun­try; and the extreme and often law­less con­duct of the few juris­dic­tions that have attempt­ed to car­ry out exe­cu­tions this year. The year began with three exe­cu­tions that con­clud­ed the Trump administration’s unpar­al­leled spree of 13 fed­er­al civil­ian exe­cu­tions in six months and two days, and saw state attempts to revive…

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Dec 16, 2020

The Death Penalty in 2020: Year End Report

2020 was abnor­mal in almost every way, and that was clear­ly the case when it came to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States. The inter­play of four forces shaped the U.S. death penal­ty land­scape in 2020: the nation’s long-term trend away from cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment; the worst glob­al pan­dem­ic in more than a cen­tu­ry; nation­wide protests for racial jus­tice; and the his­tor­i­cal­ly aber­rant con­duct of the fed­er­al admin­is­tra­tion. At the end of the year, more states had abol­ished the death penal­ty or gone…

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