Voters’ Opposition to the Death Penalty Extends to Life Without Parole
By Abby Steckel
In recent years, momentum has grown to eliminate the death penalty in the U.S. Before taking office, President Biden pledged to end capital punishment at the federal level and to encourage states to follow suit. Approval for the death penalty, which peaked at 80 percent in 1994, declined to a record low of 55 percent in 2020. These events suggest a crucial shift in American penal politics. Unfortunately, an end to state-sponsored executions will not mean an end to state-sponsored death sentences. In addition to the 2,500 people who sit on death row today, over 50,000 Americans are currently serving sentences of Life Without Parole (LWOP), also known as “life row” or the “living death penalty.”
LWOP only came into widespread use about 40 years ago. The arguments for this severe sentence are self-contradictory. Some policy makers have portrayed LWOP as a more humane alternative to execution. Others have imposed LWOP as an irrevocably harsh sentence for people who would otherwise have been eligible for release (see Disaggregating LWOP). According to sociologist and legal scholar Christopher Seeds, the U.S. stands out for how casually and frequently we sentence people to LWOP, which is considered “morally reprehensible” in other developed nations.
From June 22 to 24, Data for Progress conducted a nationally-representative survey of 1,205 likely voters to gauge opinions on LWOP. We polled likely voters about whether they would support or oppose allowing all people the opportunity to be considered for parole release. We found voters to be divided on this question. Forty-five percent of voters support giving everyone the opportunity to apply for parole, while 46 percent want to leave LWOP unchanged. Republicans, Independents, and voters aged 45 and older support the continued use of LWOP at 57, 47, and 52 percent respectively. However, there are also large blocks of voters who want to see an end to LWOP. Data for Progress found that Democratic voters oppose the use of LWOP by a 23-percentage-point margin (57 percent). LWOP is also opposed by a 21-point margin (55 percent) of voters under age 45.
A potential pathway to broader support for ending LWOP could be through education on the cruelty and illogic of this practice. People sentenced to LWOP often receive inadequate legal representation and face unique barriers to appealing their convictions. Furthermore, research shows that locking people up for life with no chance of release does not advance public safety. As people age, they are increasingly unlikely to participate in crimes. If anything, LWOP makes prisons more dangerous by putting people in profoundly hopeless situations that may cause behavioral problems.
Not only is LWOP ineffective as a public safety measure, but the terrible burden of LWOP sentences falls mostly on Black people as part of America’s systematically racist prison system. Black people make up about 12 percent of the U.S. population but 33 percent of the total incarcerated population and a staggering 56 percent of people sentenced to LWOP.
Although voters are divided on the issue, our poll shows that likely voters do not support LWOP any more than they support the death penalty, according to Gallup’s national polling. As we move towards ending the death penalty in the U.S., we must stand against the less sensationalized but no less harmful sentence of Life Without Parole. We need to rewrite the way we address serious crimes, implementing evidence-based measures to keep people safe and healthy while honoring every person’s capacity to change.
Abby Steckel is a polling intern at Data for Progress.
Methodology
From June 22 to 24, 2021, Data for Progress conducted a survey of 1,205 likely voters nationally using web panel respondents. The sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, and voting history. The survey was conducted in English. The margin of error is ±3 percentage points.