Abstract
Recent theorists have argued that the use of the death penalty has been shaped by political considerations throughout history. However, empirical research has primarily examined this relationship in the last third of the twentieth century. In order to expand the temporal scope used to examine capital punishment practices, this study examines whether four post-Furman perspectives are able to account for the use of death sentences at the state level from 1930 to 2010. This study also examines whether the movement from the pre- to the post-Furman time period moderated the relationship between political factors and use of death sentences. The findings indicate that the size of religious fundamentalist populations, jurisdictional welfare expenditures, and surpluses in the labor force are significant predictors of death sentences across both eras. These results suggest that the predictive power of recent political theories is not restrained to the jurisdictional use of death sentences in the last third of the twentieth century.
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Notes
South Carolina did not report the number of prisoners received under sentence of death in state institutions in 1932. The measurement period for South Carolina in 1930 consists of the number of jurisdictional death sentences reported in 1931. Furthermore, Pennsylvania did not report jurisdictional death sentences in 1941; therefore, the measurement period in 1940 consists of the number of death sentences reported in 1942.
The results from recent studies indicate that the public’s commitment to political ideologies and the degree of support for the death penalty among citizens are important contextual factors associated with the imposition of jurisdictional death sentences. For example, Jacobs and colleagues (Jacobs & Carmichael, 2004; Jacobs et al., 2005) found that jurisdictions were more likely to report the imposition of zero death sentences in states where there was a stronger commitment to liberal sentiment among the public. Furthermore, Norrander (2000) found that the degree of public support for the death penalty was significantly related to jurisdictional death sentence rates from 1993 to 1995. Unfortunately, the information required to construct these measures is not available throughout the entire time period under analysis.
The number of homicides and rapes for the measurement period in 1930 was drawn from the Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for 1931. With the inception of the program in 1930, only a small number of jurisdictions reported criminal activity, and there is a significant amount of missing state-level data.
There are a few limitations present when attempting to measure the population at risk of receiving a death sentence for the measurement period in 1940. First, state-level data on rape were not reported in the 1940 UCR publication or in surrounding years; therefore, this measurement period consists solely of jurisdictional homicides. Second, the 1940 UCR publication only reported jurisdictional homicide rates, which required the conversion of these rates into counts. In order to convert the rate into a count, the 1945 population for reporting cities within jurisdictions was used to calculate the number of homicides for this measurement period, which was the closest year in which this information was available. The use of the 1945 reporting population, as opposed to the potentially smaller but unavailable 1940 population that was originally used to calculate the homicide rates, is a limitation because it likely results in the overestimation of the number of homicides that occurred in 1940. Finally, homicide rates for Maine, Nevada, and Vermont were not reported in the 1940 UCR publication. In order to avoid excluding these state-years from the analyses, the number of jurisdictional homicides reported in the 1940 Vital Statistics publication were used for this measurement period. The number of homicides reported in the 1940 Vital Statistics publication differ from those in the UCR because the counts within this report include all deaths that were classified as a homicide across the entire state, while the homicides reported by the UCR are restricted solely to reporting jurisdictions.
Due to missing UCR data for 1930, the measurement of the violent and property crime rate for this decade was constructed using UCR data from 1931. Furthermore, the homicide rates for Main, Nevada, and Vermont were calculated using data from the 1940 Vital Statistics report. Since the number of homicides contained within this report are not restricted to UCR reporting cities, the homicide rates for these jurisdictions were calculated using the entire state population in 1940. Data on jurisdictional rapes were not reported in 1940; therefore, the violent crime rate for this measurement period consists of the rate of homicides, aggravated assaults, and robberies.
Reliance on early twentieth century UCR crime statistics is a limitation in this study. Scholars have noted that UCR crime statistics before 1960 were influenced by the adoption of differing statutory definitions across states, non-reporting, under-reporting, and the use of decennial population counts when calculating crime rates between decennial Census publications (Skogan, 1975; Wolfgang, 1963). These reporting issues indicate that the UCR statistics reported before 1960 likely do not represent the full extent of jurisdictional crimes that were reported to the police. Due to the presence of these limitations, the results for the variables that rely on historical crime statistics should be taken with some caution.
The results from the Hausman test (p < .001) indicated that a fixed effects model was preferred over a random effects model. However, if a fixed effects estimator were to be selected, this would require the exclusion of seven states that had zero death sentences for all of the decades under analysis (63 state-years). Due to the possible introduction of selection bias associated with the exclusion of these state-years, a mixed effects model was adopted because this procedure is able to account for time-invariant cases in the dependent variable.
In order to determine the third variable that increased the predictive value of the unemployment measure, this indicator was included in its respective theoretical model; the alternative theoretical variables were then added one at a time. Results from this analysis (not shown) indicated that the predictive value of the unemployment measure was increased with the introduction of the welfare variable. An additional analysis was performed to determine the nature of the relationship between the two variables. In this model, an interaction term was created using the two variables, and the product term was then introduced into the fully specified model. The results from this analysis (not shown) indicated that the interaction term was significantly and negatively related to jurisdictional death sentence practices (p < .01). This finding indicates that unemployment was not as strongly related to death sentences in jurisdictions that dedicated a greater proportion of their expenditures to social welfare programming.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Richard Rosenfeld for his comments on an earlier version of this paper and for all of his assistance with this study. I would also like to thank Richard Wright, Michael Campbell, and Bruce Western for their feedback on this project.
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Appendix
Appendix
Variable | Year(s) | Data Sources | |
|---|---|---|---|
Death sentences | 1930 to 1946 | Prisoners in State and Federal Prisons and Reformatories | U.S. Census Bureau |
1950 | National Prisoner Statistics – Prisoners in State and Federal Institutions | Bureau of Prisons | |
1960 to 1970 | National Prisoner Statistics - Executions | Bureau of Prisons | |
1971 to 2012 | Capital Punishment Series | U.S. Department of Justice | |
Republican governor | 1930 to 2000 | Guide to U.S. Elections – Volume II | Moore, Preimesberger, Tarr (2005) |
2010 | National Governors Association | ||
Percentage of Republicans in the state legislature | 1930 to 2000 | Party Affiliation in the State Legislatures: A Year by Year Summary, 1796–2006. | Dubin (2007) |
2010 | Statistical Abstracts of the United States | U.S. Census Bureau | |
Religious fundamentalists | 1926 to 1936 | Census of Religious Bodies | U.S. Census Bureau |
1952 to 1971 | Churches and Church Membership | National Council of Churches | |
1980 to 1990 | Churches and Church Membership | National Council of Churches | |
2000 | Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States | Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies | |
2010 | U.S. Religion Census | U.S. Census Bureau | |
Percent welfare expenditures | 1930 to 1940 | Financial Statistics of the States | U.S. Department of Commerce |
1950 to 2010 | Statistical Abstracts of the United States | U.S. Census Bureau | |
Percent African American | 1930 to 2010 | Decennial Census Reports | U.S. Census Bureau |
Percent unemployed | 1930 to 2000 | Decennial Census Reports | U.S. Census Bureau |
2010 | Statistical Abstracts of the United States | U.S. Census Bureau | |
Lynching rate | 1889 to 1918 | Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889–1918 | NAACP |
1919 to 1931 | NAACP “Annual Reports” | NAACP | |
Number of homicides & rapes | 1931 to 2010 | Uniform Crime Report | Federal Bureau of Investigation |
Violent & property crime rate | 1931 to 2010 | Uniform Crime Report | Federal Bureau of Investigation |
Total state population | 1930 to 2010 | Decennial Census Reports | U.S. Census Bureau |
Born in State | 1930 to 2000 | Decennial Census Reports | U.S. Census Bureau |
2010 | American Community Survey | U.S. Census Bureau | |
Percent living in cities of 50,000+ | 1930 to 2010 | Decennial Census Reports | U.S. Census Bureau |
Gross debt | 1930 to 1940 | Financial Statistics of the States | U.S. Department of Commerce |
1950 to 2000 | Statistical Abstracts of the United States | U.S. Census Bureau | |
2010 | State Government Finances | U.S. Census Bureau | |
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Amidon, E. Politics and the Death Penalty: 1930–2010. Am J Crim Just 43, 831–860 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-018-9441-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-018-9441-y