Statistics on Capital Punishment

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A more polemical post on capital punishment is here.

Content:

1. Current situation: death penalty laws and numbers of executions
2. Deterrence?
3. Racial discrimination in the use of capital punishment
4. Trends in capital punishment: numbers of executions, public support and abolitionism

1. Current situation: death penalty laws and numbers of executions

These are the different death penalty laws around the world:

(source, click on the image to enlarge)

capital punishment laws of the world, 2008 map

(source)

Amnesty International estimates that around 1.200 people were executed by their governments in 2007. Of course, this is a gross underestimate given the large number of unreported executions, extra-judicial executions, deaths caused while incarcerated, etc.

This graph ranks countries according to the number of executions compared to total population:

The number of prisoners on death row around the world – the people waiting sometimes for 20 years for their “imminent” execution – is probably close to 15.000:

(source)

The following chart shows the number and methods of executions in the U.S. (there was a Supreme Court enforced moratorium in the sixties and seventies):

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2. Deterrence?

It is difficult to conclusively demonstrate the existence or non-existence of a deterrence effect because correlations unearthed (or not) in statistical analysis do not imply causation. Those who refrain from committing crimes due to a supposed deterrent effect of the death penalty will by definition never show up in any statistic.

This Amnesty International graph shows that murder rates in US states that apply the death penalty are higher than the rates in other states.

So this would indicate that deterrence doesn’t work. But we can only be sure of this when the death penalty will no longer be applied for many years to come in the states which apply it currently, and when the murder rate after abolition doesn’t go up. But even if all this happens, this can be the result of other causes.

This other graph points in the opposite direction:

More about deterrence statistics is here.

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3. Racial discrimination in the use of capital punishment

A particular problem with executions in the US, is the apparent racial discrimination of death row. Whereas people from African-American descent make up only 12% of the population, they represent 34% of the executions:

(source)

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4. Trends in capital punishment: numbers of executions, public support and abolitionism

I’ve argued here against the death penalty, so it’s good news to see that there’s a gradual, worldwide trend in favor of the abolition of capital punishment. Let’s first have a look at the U.S. The number of death sentences in the U.S. has dropped substantially over the last decade:

(source)

The number of executions has dropped as well:

• 98 in 1999
• 53 in 2006
• 42 in 2007.

(source)

Of course, the U.S. isn’t the most brutal in this respect:

(source)

In the U.S., public support for the death penalty is waning, especially when the people who are polled can choose the alternative of life imprisonment without parole:

(source)

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When we look beyond the U.S. – which is indeed not the main culprit – we see that an increasing number of countries has abolished or limited the death penalty. At the end of 2008, almost 140 countries had either legally abolished capital punishment, or stopped applying the punishment in practice (abolitionist in practice means not having carried out an execution in over 10 years):

(source)

More on capital punishment.

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