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There has long been discussion about how the death penalty in America is quite possibly racist, and there’s even been discussion about how there might be a gender bias (only 14 women have been executed since 1976). There’s an element of these discussions not often covered, though, and that’s the idea of which groups (white, black, Hispanic) tend to mostly support the death penalty.
Here’s some new-ish stuff from Pew Research, with the overall idea being that a shrinking number of Americans currently support the death penalty (in November 2011, 31 percent of respondents opposed it; in this new survey, 37 percent did — and the pro numbers went from 62 down to 55). This chart is potentially of concern, though:
63 percent of whites favor the death penalty; that’s only 36 percent for African-Americans and 40 percent for Hispanic. Now, it should be noted that all those numbers are dropping — in 1996, the “whites in favor” category was 81 percent, so across about 18 years, it’s dropped by 20 percent. The African-American number has gone from 55 percent (favorable) to 36 percent in the same time frame. So, maybe it’s not an issue … or maybe it is:
