American’s perception of crime rates may be completely off, but according to the Pew Research Center, support for the death penalty has dropped:
Even as support for the death penalty has declined across nearly all groups, demographic differences remain: Men are more likely to back the use of the death penalty than women, white Americans are more supportive than blacks and Hispanics, and attitudes on the issue also differ by age, education and along religious lines.
More than half of men (55%) say they are in favor of the death penalty and 38% are opposed. Women’s views are more divided: 43% favor the death penalty, 45% oppose it.
A 57% majority of whites favor the death penalty for those convicted of murder (down from 63% last year). But blacks and Hispanics support it at much lower rates: Just 29% of blacks and 36% of Hispanics favor capital punishment.
Which is interesting in how to explain it. Is it an advance in moral thinking by a significant number of Americans? Or – due to the misperception of skyrocketing crime – have many Americans concluded that harsh punishment actually doesn’t work? And the racial gap is interesting, if explainable – if you don’t trust law enforcement to arrest the proper person for a crime, then why ask for harsh punishments for the probable innocents?
Or perhaps the existence and publicity surrounding The Innocence Project, and those who’ve been proven innocent by them, has served to remind folks that enforcing a death penalty against those who may be innocent is risking the greatest injustice of all.
