The End of the Death Penalty

About 15 years ago I wrote a controversial article in The New Republic arguing, on very hard evidence, that it simply wasn’t true that Americans were more supportive of the death penalty than nations in Europe. Mainly the issue was that European political systems were less responsive to populist support. It’s probably a mix of structural (parliamentary) and cultural differences (less populist). But the decline of violent crime, not surprisingly, has rapidly reduced Americans’ support for the death penalty. Look at this chart.