Gallup: Death penalty support holds steady for 6 straight years
Gallup: Death penalty support holds steady for 6 straight years
September 9, 2013
The percentage of the U.S. population that supports the death penalty has held steady for six straight years at 63 percent – the longest such streak in Gallup’s 12-year history of the annual Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, conducted every spring since 2007.
The survey, conducted Feb. 11-23, 2013, finds a significant gender gap when it comes to support for the death penalty in the U.S. A majority of men – 67 percent – support the death penalty while men supported the death penalty about 60 percent of the time. Seventy-two percent of women support the death penalty, holding at a steady rate for the past six years.
Gallup’s 2013 “Death Penalty Support” report finds that support for the death penalty is highest among political conservatives, closely followed by liberals on the political right. It is lowest about 20 percentage points below center among political moderates. Americans’ perceptions of the death penalty in general are generally positive, with a slight overall preference for non-violent death sentences over life sentences at 58 percent and a slight majority favoring life sentences over death sentences at 51 percent. (Gallup, 2013)
A majority of both Republicans and Democrats say the death penalty is too high. A smaller majority of Republicans and about a quarter of Democrats also say the death penalty is too low.
Support for the death penalty has steadily decreased since 2006, with the share saying the death penalty is too high dropping from 81 percent to a low of 72 percent, while the share saying the death penalty is too low increased from 12 percent to 27 percent.
A majority of Americans believe that the death penalty is too high, as Gallup has found in six out of the past seven surveys. In March 2009, 51 percent of Americans said the death penalty was too high, the first time a majority of Americans had said this since Gallup began asking this question in 1972. A year later, 53 percent said the death penalty was too high.
Gallup’s 2013 “Death Penalty Support” report finds