Pew: Support for death penalty at lowest level since early 1970s « Hot Air

Pew: Support for death penalty at lowest level since early 1970s « Hot Air: "The magic-bullet explanation is that it’s a reaction to the steep decline in violent crime in America since the early 1990s. The safer people feel, the less urgent their impulse to punish society’s worst offenders severely. (Tangentially, that may also help explain why support for prison reform is growing within both parties.) But the crime rate can’t explain everything; to see why, read this post from last year flagging a pair of graphs from Gallup showing that trends in how safe people feel haven’t steadily declined over time. They’re down from where they were in the 90s, but they’re actually up from where they were a few years ago — and yet support for the death penalty continues to plummet. There must be more happening here. A clue from Pew in the last three numbers here."



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