Death Penalty Retains Support, Even With Pro-Life Catholics, Despite Flaws
“Sixty-four percent of Americans support the death penalty in cases of murder,” says Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll.
That’s actually a little higher level of support than when George Gallup began asking Americans about their views of the death penalty back in the mid-1930s. Support is generally higher among Republicans surveyed, and among those who live in the South, he said, where 1,042 of the nation’s 1,269 executions since 1976 have occurred. (Texas has overseen the most executions, 475 since 1976. Virginia has killed 109 death-row inmates.)
Over the past decade, Newport says, Gallup’s annual crime survey has found that support for state-sponsored execution has remained remarkably stable, despite revelations based on DNA analysis and other evidence that innocent people have been put to death.
“A majority of Americans agree that innocent people have been put to death, and they also say that the death penalty is not a deterrent to murder,” Newport says.
The international community has also pressured the U.S. to leave the ranks of countries that execute. The U.S. last year, according to Amnesty International, trailed only China, North Korea, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia in the number of state-sponsored executions.
Still, support has remained consistent.
“People say, we already know these facts, and we still support it,” says Newport. “Despite what’s happened, we haven’t seen a change in attitudes.”
Take American Catholics, for example, who make up more than the quarter of the nation’s electorate.
The church - from its bishops to the Pope - have long called on Congress, the courts and state legislatures to end the death penalty or, at least, restrain it as part of the denomination’s stated commitment to “building a culture of life.”
But framing the issue as a moral one has not moved rank-and-file American Catholics.
Their attitudes toward the death penalty are no different than others surveyed by Gallup, Newport says.