US death penalty: Proportion of Americans who support execution falls below 50% for the first time

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

US death penalty: Proportion of Americans who support execution falls below 50% for the first time

30 September 2016 US & Canada

The proportion of Americans who support the death penalty has fallen below half for the first time, according to a US study.

The Pew Research Center, which looks at social issues, found that belief in capital punishment was at its lowest for over four decades.

Only about half of Americans (49%) now favour execution for inmates convicted of murder, while 42% oppose it.

Support has dropped by 7% since March 2015, from 56%.

There has been a sizeable slump in public approval for state executions, which peaked during the mid-1990s.

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Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37516595

[saltpoint]

1. Encouraging trend, IMO. eom

[Coventina]

2. Hooray! K&R n/t

[longship]

3. It starts when so-called painless death turns into torture.

Of course we electrically roasted people to death for decades with little complaint. It might have been more humane to boil them in oil, one might argue. Probably not, but little better either way.

Now there are no more so-called humane death drugs. So states will have to find less humane death drugs. That's where the ethics come into the issue, where people evaluate their death penalty position, since we are apparently no longer allowed to electrically roast people. At least in most places.

This is all ignoring those innocents released from death row because of DNA evidence, which is yet another issue.

[Calculating]

4. 3 main reasons imo

1-The possibility of executing innocents.
2-The death penalty is so delayed and inefficient that it ends up costing more than Life without Parole.
3-Botched executions involving weird drug cocktails.

Personally I support the death penalty because there are individuals who are so sick that it's insulting to society and their victims to not put them down.
IE this guy
http://www.fox2detroit.com/news/local-news/207084016-story

And that story about the mom who went online looking for people to rape and kill her little girl while she watched.

I do think the DP is overused and needs some improvements.
#1 can be addressed by only giving the DP in cases of very little doubt.
#3 can be addressed by just going back to firing squads or something. Nothing inhumane about taking a bunch of bullets in the chest and instantly dying. These weird chemical executions are where things start to get cruel and unusual.