Criminology, Law & Society

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) collects data on persons held under sentence of death and persons executed during the calendar year from the state department of corrections and the Federal Bureau of Prison.

Publications & Products: Capital Punishment, sorted by date, most current first.

The DPIC is a national non-profit organization serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment.

"The federal government can seek death sentences for a limited set of crimes, but federal executions are much rarer than state executions.

"The federal death penalty applies in all 50 states and U.S. territories but is used relatively rarely. About 50 prisoners are on the federal death row, most of whom are imprisoned in Terre Haute, Indiana. Sixteen federal executions have been carried out in the modern era, all by lethal injection, with 13 occurring in a six-month period between July 2020 and January 2021."

"This report covers the judicial use of the death penalty for the period January to December 2018. As in previous years, information is collected from a variety of sources, including: official figures; judgments; information from individuals sentenced to death and their families and representatives; reporting by other civil society organizations; and media reports. Amnesty International reports only on executions, death sentences and other aspects of the use of the death penalty, such as commutations and exonerations, where there is reasonable confirmation."

Clearinghouse for global capital punishment data collection and publication.

Years of Expansion, 1950-1990, encompasses foundation project files on the Amnesty Project, 1964-1980; the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee, 1964-1976; and subject files on freedom of belief, expression, and association; due process of law; equality before the law; international civil liberties; and legal case files, 1933-1990. Part 2, Southern Regional Office primarily covers the 1960s through early 1990s and includes records of its formation and the court cases in which its staff litigated including correspondence, memos, court documents, amicus briefs, publications, testimony, reports and studies, administrative files, personnel records, meeting minutes, and documents related to the history of the office."

An execution, just like torture, involves a deliberate assault on a prisoner. Even so-called 'humane' methods such as lethal injection can entail excruciating suffering. Capital punishment is irrevocable. All judicial systems make mistakes, and as long as the death penalty persists, innocent people will be executed.

Congress or any state legislature may prescribe the death penalty, also known as capital punishment, for murder and other capital crimes...

Because of mandatory sentencing laws, the population of federal prisons has soared and they are filled with low-level, nonviolent drug law violators – not the “kingpins” mandatory sentences intended to apprehend.