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Is the Death Penalty Debate Really Dead? Contrasting Capital Punishment Support in Canada and the United States
Author(s) -
Rancourt MarcAntoine,
Ouellet Catherine,
Dufresne Yannick
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
analyses of social issues and public policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1530-2415
pISSN - 1529-7489
DOI - 10.1111/asap.12213
Subject(s) - distrust , capital punishment , capital (architecture) , value (mathematics) , punishment (psychology) , order (exchange) , political science , government (linguistics) , law , criminology , economics , sociology , psychology , social psychology , history , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , finance , machine learning , computer science
For decades, capital punishment has been a highly divisive topic. Today, most democratic governments have done away with capital punishment, with few exceptions which include the United States. Drawing from the Canadian Election Study (2015) and the American National Election Study (2016), this article explores the underlying value systems that shape contemporary pro‐death penalty opinions in Canada and in the United States. Findings suggest that, in both countries, pro‐death penalty attitudes should be better understood as part of a “law and order syndrome.” In the United States, the distribution of attitudes toward death penalty is also the reflection of a partisan divide. Our results also support the hypothesis that government distrust increases death penalty support in Canada.