Gallup’s latest poll on American support for the death penalty has some very interesting results.
When asked, “Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?,” 69% of respondents replied “yes” and 27% replied no. That matches up with results from a May Gallup poll on the morality of the death penalty: in that poll, 66% said that that the death penalty was morally acceptable, 27% said that it was morally wrong, and 5% said it depended on the circumstances.
I was particularly interested in the results of the more specific poll question on whether the death penalty was imposed too often, not often enough, or about as often as it should be. The results: 49% said it should be imposed more often, 21% said it was imposed too often already, and 26% said it was imposed about as often as it should be. (There are various ways to understand the slightly different numbers among the different questions; one possibility is that the question, “Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?” is interpreted by some respondents as being a preference for capital punishment for all murderers rather than just some.)
For more discussion of the poll, see Crime & Consequences and Sentencing Law & Policy.