|
USA - Gallup poll: 52% of Americans in favor of the death penalty. 41% amongst younger Americans
November 5, 2025: November 05, 2025 - USA. Gallup poll: 52% of Americans in favor of the death penalty. 41% amongst younger Americans.
Gallup’s 2025 update of its annual Crime poll assessed U.S. adults’ general philosophy on crime control as well as five prominently discussed approaches to tackling crime. These include the death penalty, treating juveniles who commit violent crimes as adults, holding parents responsible when their children use family-owned guns in a crime, and deploying either the National Guard or military troops to cities to help control crime.
During election cycles, it is not uncommon to see some politicians and elected officials talking more about the death penalty than usual – often in an attempt to bolster their “tough on crime” credentials. This phenomenon is based on the outdated assumption that use of capital punishment is a popular way of addressing violent crime.
The data show otherwise. An October 2025 Gallup poll confirms a thirty-year trend: every year since 1994, the death penalty has become less popular among Americans generally and less popular among young Americans in particular.
Public support for the death penalty has been falling steadily since 1994.
In 2025, Gallup reports that support for the death penalty has declined to its lowest level in over 50 years. Public support for the death penalty in the modern death penalty era has been declining since 1994, when support was at 80%, the highest level since Gallup began collecting data in 1936. In 1972, the same year the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated capital punishment statutes nationwide, only half of respondents were in favor of the death penalty. As of October 2025, a similar number — just 52% — expressed support for the death penalty, down one percentage point from 2024’s number of 53%.
Less than half of all adults age 18 – 54 support the death penalty.
According to Gallup, only 46% of people age 35 to 54 years old support the death penalty. The level of support falls even further for young adults: just 41% of people age 18 to 34 years old now support the death penalty. This marks a significant drop over the past 15 years. In 2011, Gallup found 62% of people age 30 to 49 years old and 52% of young adults age 18 to 29 years old favored the death penalty. In older adults, numbers have remained relatively stable. In 2025, 62% of adults over 55 years old favor the death penalty.
Opposition to the death penalty has more than tripled over the past three decades.
Gallup also found 44% of Americans opposed to the death penalty — the highest level of opposition since May 1966. Opposition to capital punishment has been increasing since the 1990s, and has more than tripled since 1995, when only 13% of Americans opposed the death penalty.
According to Gallup polling, political affiliation is part of the explanation. Death Penalty: There is a 49-point gap between the major party groups over the death penalty, with 81% of Republicans and 32% of Democrats in favor.
While Republicans have maintained steady support for the death penalty — 80% in favor in 2000 and 81% in 2025 — support among Democrats and Independents has declined sharply. In 2025, 47% of registered Independents said they were in favor of capital punishment, a 21-percentage-point decline since 2000. Among registered Democrats, the long-term change has been even more pronounced. In 2025, only 32% of Democrats favored the death penalty, a 24-percentage-point drop from 56% in 2000.
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted October 1-16, 2025, with a random sample of –1,000— adults, ages 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on this sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-the-death-penalty-new-public-opinion-poll-confirms-growing-disapproval-of-death-penalty
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1606/Death-Penalty.aspx
https://news.gallup.com/poll/697244/americans-prefer-tempered-crime-fighting-methods.aspx (Source: DPIC, 05/11/2025)
|
