The death penalty is no longer supported by the majority of Americans, making it the first time in nearly a half century the public is unsure about capital punishment, according to a Pew Research report released Thursday.
Support has dropped 7 points in the past year. Only 49 percent of people support using the death penalty for people convicted of murder, according to the Aug. 23-Sept. 2 study of U.S. adults. The level of support dipped to 47 percent in the mid-1960s, then climbed to a peak of 80 percent in 1996, which may correlate with national crime levels that started to increase around the same time.
Four in 10 people now oppose the practice, up from 16 percent in 1996, when former President Bill Clinton was in office. But opposition to capital punishment is at its highest level since 1972.
All political groups had substantial decreases in support for the death penalty. Twenty years ago, seven in 10 Democrats backed the penalty, but that number has shrunk to less than half of that. Contrastingly, while Republican support of the penalty has decreased over the past two decades, it dropped from 87 percent to 72 percent.
The poll was conducted by cell phone and landline telephones with 1,201 adults in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
