The American public has become more tolerant on a number of moral issues, including premarital sex, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia. On a list of 19 major moral issues of the day, Americans express levels of moral acceptance that are as high or higher than in the past on […] Read more »
An Anti-Death-Penalty Majority Might Be on Its Way … in 2044
Last month’s botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma brought the death penalty back into a prominent position in the national debate. Although it’s been noted that the percentage of Americans who favor executing people convicted of murder has fallen over the past decade, the vast majority of them still […] Read more »
Americans Back Death Penalty by Gas or Electrocution If No Needle
A badly botched lethal injection in Oklahoma has not chipped away at the American public’s support of the death penalty, although two-thirds of voters would back alternatives to the needle, an exclusive NBC News poll shows. One in three people say that if lethal injections are no longer viable — […] Read more »
View of Death Penalty as Morally OK Unchanged in U.S.
The recent news about the botched execution of an Oklahoma death row inmate has not affected the way Americans view the death penalty. Sixty-one percent say the death penalty is morally acceptable, similar to the 62% who said so in 2013, although both figures are down from a high of […] Read more »
Not Clear That Oklahoma Execution Will Affect Death Penalty Attitudes
The botched execution of a convicted killer in Oklahoma in late April — in which the individual was reported to have writhed in pain and convulsed for nearly 45 minutes before dying — has again raised the issue of Americans’ attitudes toward the death penalty. … Sixty percent of Americans […] Read more »
The S-Curve of Cultural Change
Many observers have been struck by how quickly public opinion has shifted on homosexuality in the United States. … In the mid-1970s, about 70 percent of Americans told pollsters that “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” were “always wrong.” In the 2010s only 46 percent did. Note […] Read more »