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: 26 — 30


Oct 03, 2016

California Votes: Propositions 62 and 66

This November, Californians face impor­tant votes on two bal­lot ini­tia­tives relat­ed to the death penal­ty: Prop 62 and Prop 66. Prop 62 pro­pos­es to repeal the death penal­ty in California and replace it with impris­on­ment for life with­out pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole, while Prop 66 pro­pos­es to speed up the process of adju­di­cat­ing cap­i­tal appeals in state court through a num­ber of com­plex adjust­ments to the process. Both propo­si­tions would require pris­on­ers to work in prison to pay resti­tu­tion to the fam­i­ly mem­bers of homi­cide victims.

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Nov 10, 2015

Battle Scars: Military Veterans and the Death Penalty

In many respects, vet­er­ans in the United States are again receiv­ing the respect and grat­i­tude they deserve for hav­ing risked their lives and served their coun­try. Wounded sol­diers are wel­comed home, and their courage in start­ing a new and dif­fi­cult jour­ney in civil­ian life is right­ly applaud­ed. But some vet­er­ans with debil­i­tat­ing scars from their time in com­bat have received a very dif­fer­ent recep­tion. They have been judged to be the worst of the worst” crim­i­nals, deprived of mer­cy, sen­tenced to death, and exe­cut­ed by the gov­ern­ment they served.

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