Results revealed that the majority of college students in both the United States (70 percent) and China (60 percent) were in favor of the death penalty, although Chinese students expressed a higher level of death penalty support than American students. Chinese students expressed greater beliefs in three of the four major ideologies of punishment in the West--deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation--than their American counterparts. As for the fourth major ideology of punishment, retribution, American students were more likely to express belief in this “eye for an eye” ideology than Chinese students but were less likely to give society or government the right to seek revenge on violent criminals. This last finding may be reflective of American’s tendency to be more critical of government than Chinese citizens. Retribution was the greatest predictor of attitudes toward the death penalty in the United States while deterrence was the strongest predictor of attitudes toward the death penalty in China. Participants were a non-random sample of 524 Chinese college students attending 1 university in China and 484 American college students attending 1 university in the Midwest. The survey focused on the effects of the four punishment ideologies on support for the death penalty. Data were analyzed using multivariate regression analyses. Future research should focus on the validity and reliability of surveys on the death penalty in China. Tables, appendix, references