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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: 31 — 35

Dec 15, 2011

The Death Penalty in 2011: Year End Report

(Washington, D.C.) New death sen­tences dropped to 78 in 2011, rep­re­sent­ing a dra­mat­ic decline from last year’s num­ber of 112 and mark­ing the first time since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed in 1976 that the coun­try has pro­duced few­er than 100 death sen­tences in a sin­gle year, accord­ing to a report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), based on data as of mid-December. Death sen­tences have declined about 75 per­cent since 1996, when 315 indi­vid­u­als were sen­tenced to death.

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Jun 22, 2011

Struck by Lightning: The Continuing Arbitrariness of the Death Penalty Thirty-Five Years After Its Reinstatement in 1976

The United States Supreme Court approved the re-instate­ment of the death penal­ty 35 years ago on July 2, 1976. Although the death penal­ty had ear­li­er been held uncon­sti­tu­tion­al because of its arbi­trary and unpre­dictable appli­ca­tion, the Court was will­ing to sanc­tion new sys­tems that states had pro­posed to make cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment less like ​“being struck by light­ning” and more like ret­ri­bu­tion for only the ​“worst of the worst” offend­ers. The Court also deferred to the states’ judg­ment that the death penal­ty served the goals of ret­ri­bu­tion and deterrence.

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Dec 21, 2010

The Death Penalty in 2010: Year End Report

(Washington, D.C.) The coun­try expe­ri­enced a 12 per­cent decrease in exe­cu­tions in 2010 com­pared to 2009 and a more than 50 per­cent drop com­pared to 1999, accord­ing to a report released today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). Texas had 29 per­cent few­er exe­cu­tions in 2010 than the pre­vi­ous year

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