Homer Simpson put it best: “People can come up with statistics to prove any point. Fourteen percent of people know that.” Lately, we have good reason to heed his sage wisdom as a new round of death penalty polls, with an accompanying round of superficial analysis, is distorting public perceptions of the death penalty.
On November 8, Gallup released their annual death penalty poll followed by the release of a similar poll by Angus Reid Public Opinion the next day, both of which sparked headlines across the country about how much Americans seemingly support capital punishment: Gallup says 64 percent of Americans support the death penalty, while Angus Reid cranks that number all the way up to 83 percent.
But support for the death penalty drops when respondents are asked to consider alternatives – and it drops a lot depending on which one is presented. Gallup asks about the death penalty every year, but occasionally they also ask if people prefer the death penalty over “life imprisonment, with absolutely no possibility of parole.” This year, when given the alternative of life without parole, support for the death penalty falls from 64 percent to 49 percent – just 3 percent higher than those who prefer the alternative, within the margin of error. The last time Gallup asked about the alternative of life without parole was 2006, and at that time support for permanent imprisonment was actually higher than support for the death penalty, again within the margin of error.
Earlier this week, The Tennessean put out a 