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Death Penalty Information

For those who want to learn more about the death penalty in the United States, the following items include statistical data on capital punishment laws, murder rates, public opinion, death row inmates, and executions. The data are also available in Excel file here.

1. Death Penalty Laws, by State
   Capital punishment and non-capital punishment states; methods of execution; dates when capital punishment was reinstituted after the Gregg (1976) decision, and the first executions under the revised capital punishment laws.


2. Homicide Statistics
   The number of homicides committed in the United States and the homicide rate by year.


3. Public Support for the Death Penalty
   Public opinion surveys on the death penalty since 1960.


4. Victims and Offenders
   The proportion of murderers and victims of homicide relative to their percentages in the general population, by race, sex, and age.


5. Death Row Inmates, 1953-2006
   The number of inmates under sentence of death, nationwide, by year.


6. Death Row Inmates, by Race
   The number of inmates under sentence of death, nationwide, by race, by year.


7. Death Row Profile, 2006
   The percentage of inmates on death row in 2006, by race/ethnicity, sex, age, and prior criminal record.


8. Time on Death Row
   The average number of months a condemned offender remains on death row, by year.


9. Executions Since 1976
   The number of offenders put to death each year since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized the use of capital punishment in 1976.


10. Executions by State
    State-by-state information on the death penalty, including state murder rates, executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reauthorized the use of capital punishment in 1976, executions prior to 1976, and death row population.


11. Executions by Capital Punishment Method
    The number of executions since 1976 conducted by lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and firing squad.