Support for capital punishment has been declining in the US for years over concerns such as fairness and racial bias.
Published On ۱۰ Nov ۲۰۲۶
A new Gallup poll has found that support for the death penalty in the United States has fallen below ۵۰ percent, marking the first time that the controversial practice has lost majority support since ۱۹۷۱.
The poll released on Tuesday found that ۴۹ percent of people said they are in favour of capital punishment for those convicted of murder, the lowest level since ۱۹۶۶, while ۴۵ percent say they are opposed.
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“While statistically similar to last year’s ۵۲ percent, the latest update marks the first time support has been below the majority level since ۱۹۷۱, when it was also at ۴۹ percent,” Gallup said in a statement.
Support for the death penalty has been declining for decades amid concerns about issues of fairness, racial bias, high costs, botched executions and the possibility of innocent people being put to death. Decades of scholarship have also cast doubt on the argument that capital punishment deters crime.
Age, party divide
The latest Gallup poll found stark divides by age and partisan affiliation. While ۵۴ percent of people aged ۵۰ and older support the death penalty, that figure drops to just ۳۹ percent for those younger the age of ۳۰.
About ۷۳ percent of Republicans are in favour, compared with ۵۰ percent for independents and ۲۸ percent for Democrats.
But all of those groups have seen support decline over the last three decades, dropping by ۱۱ points for Republicans, ۲۹ points for independents, and ۴۷ points for Democrats since ۱۹۹۴, during the heyday of tough-on-crime politics in the US.
In that period, a punitive approach to criminal justice embraced by both parties transformed the US into one of the most prolific jailers on the planet and saw an increase in the number of crimes that qualified for execution.
A debate about the legacy of the policies championed during that era, including the death penalty, has been pushed forward by protests for racial justice in recent years.
While ۲۷ US states still have the death penalty, ۲۳ have done away with the practice and four have paused it through executive action, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit research group.
Rise in federal executions
Many states that still have capital punishment on the books have gone years without carrying out an execution, and lengthy appeals processes have meant that many prisoners spend years or even decades on death row.
President Donald Trump has been an exception to the move away from capital punishment, overseeing a massive increase in federal executions during his first term in office and promising to continue using it during his second.
The prevalence of botched executions, such as that of Christa Pike via failed lethal injection in the state of Tennessee last month, has also raised questions about whether the practice violates the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
