A 60 percent of Americans They are in favor of applying the death penalty to prisoners convicted of murder, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center that reflects mainly practical doubts about this punishment, including the fear that innocent people could be executed.
2020 It was the year with the fewest executions in the United States in the last three decades and, in general terms, the trend in the use of the death penalty is downward. However, for now only a 39 percent of citizens are against and, within this group, frontal rejection is around 15 percent.
Support for executions has fallen five points compared to August 2020 – when it was 65 percent – and the proportion of those who think that there is a real risk that innocent people will be killed by the action of the American justice.
78 percent of the 5,109 people interviewed by Pew Research Center admit this, while only 21 percent think that there are sufficient guarantees. Amnesty International estimates that 150 people sentenced to death have been acquitted since 1976, although in some cases this acquittal came too late, when they had already been executed.
On the other hand, more than six in ten Americans believe that the existence of this punishment does not work as a deterrent to the commission of the most serious crimes.
The debate also has a racial front, since 56 percent think that African American citizens are more likely to be sentenced to the death penalty, a figure that shoots up to 85 percent if only the opinion of the citizens is taken into account. blacks.
By parties, they are still the supporters of the Republican Party those most favorable to capital punishment – a 77 percent – and 40 percent of them are in favor without cracks. On the Democratic side, on the other hand, the degree of opposition reaches 53 percent.
