How Many Americans Support the Death Penalty? Depends How You Ask. - The New York Times - 0 views
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The use of capital punishment has fallen to historically low levels in recent years. This year, Virginia became the first Southern state to outlaw the practice.
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Still, a solid majority of Americans continue to favor keeping the death penalty, driven by the conviction that it’s morally justified in cases of murder — even though most of the country recognizes that there are racial disparities in how it’s doled out, and an overwhelming majority admits that it sometimes results in the death of an innocent person.
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We can say all this with relative certainty thanks to a Pew Research Center poll released today. Sixty percent considered the death penalty acceptable for people convicted of murder, according to the survey of Pew’s online American Trends Panel.
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Polls on the death penalty presented one of the most glaring examples. More than other issues — and far more than on questions about candidate choice, which generally aren’t as deeply impacted by survey mode — capital punishment drew meaningfully different responses.
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Last year, participants of Pew’s online panel were 13 points more likely than those surveyed by phone to say they approved of the death penalty. Among Democrats, there was a particularly strong aversion to expressing support via phone
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There are a number of issues that make phone polls different from online surveys, including the fact that they tend to yield a slightly different sample of respondents.
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“It’s a bit of a touchy subject, it’s kind of sensitive, and admitting that you hold an opinion that has such profound implications for somebody else — not everybody wants to engage with that with a stranger,” Kennedy said, referring to questions about the death penalty.
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Among Republicans and independents who lean toward the G.O.P., 77 percent said in the new poll that they supported the death penalty.
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Even among Republicans, however, there was broad acknowledgment that it’s impossible to ensure innocent people won’t be executed. Just 31 percent of Republicans and leaners said there were “adequate safeguards” to that effect. Only 12 percent of Democrats and their leaners said so.
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And most Americans — 63 percent — doubted that the death penalty successfully discouraged crime. Even among those who favored its use, just 50 percent said it was a deterrent to serious crimes.
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Fully 85 percent of Black people said that whites were less likely to be put to death for similar crimes, but white respondents were evenly divided on the question.