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Public Attitudes Towards the Death Penalty

NCJ Number
178449
Journal
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology Volume: 13 Issue: 2 Dated: Fall 1998 Pages: 76-86
Author(s)
Jeremy Mills; Edward Zamble
Date Published
1998
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This study examined the Canadian general public's consistency of responses to a general question on the death penalty and sentences that respondents chose in a set of scenarios of homicide cases.
Abstract
Participants were drawn from passersby on a busy sidewalk in the downtown business section of a middle-sized Ontario city. A conscious effort was made to avoid "choosing" participants. Any person who appeared 18 years old or older was requested to participate. Of the 372 participants, 46 percent were male and 54 percent were female, with the median age of respondents being between 29 and 30 and the mean level of education 14.3 years. The information was obtained in four sections of a questionnaire. The first section obtained demographic information for respondents. This section also included the question, "Do you favor or oppose capital punishment for the killing of any innocent person?" This question was followed immediately by a 7-point Likert-type scale to determine the strength of the opinion held. The second section of the questionnaire contained either a description of a death by hanging, a death by lethal injection, or no description at all. The intent of these descriptions was to present the death penalty as either a violent and distasteful event or a humane and painless death with lethal injection. The third section of the questionnaire contained a set of 12 vignettes; each summarized a homicide case and asked the participant to specify a sentence. The percentage of respondents who assigned the death sentence in one or more of the homicide scenarios was higher than the percentage of those who favored the death penalty in the abstract question, but there were inconsistencies in the answers. A majority of the respondents assigned the death penalty only for the most heinous murder. At the same time, a manipulation that involved information about methods of execution did not affect answers. These results suggest that the abstract questions typically used in public opinion polls do not accurately reflect the public's feeling about the use of the death penalty in specific cases. Research on public opinion regarding criminal justice policies should survey attitudes in the context of specific circumstances. 3 tables and 21 references