Sources · The death penalty
This house would bring back the death penalty for the worst murders.
Fact bank v1 · 12 cards
- DP-01True
“Most Americans support the death penalty for murder.”
Confirmed: in a July 2026 Pew survey, 66% of US adults said they favour the death penalty for people convicted of murder, and 32% said they oppose it.
Support is 6 points higher than in April 2021, when it was at a low of 60%. Many people still have doubts. 73% say there is some risk an innocent person will be put to death, and 59% say it does not stop people committing serious crimes. Pew says phone polls give lower numbers than its online polls: its phone polls in 2019 and 2020 found 52% to 55% in favour.
“about two-thirds of Americans (66%) now favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder, while nearly a third (32%) oppose it”
Pew Research Center·Most Americans Favor the Death Penalty for Those Convicted of MurderIndependent research institute · 6 Aug 2026 ↗ - DP-02Unsupported
“Studies prove that every execution saves lives, stopping as many as 18 murders.”
Not backed by solid evidence. A 2003 study did estimate 18 fewer murders for each execution (give or take 10), but when other researchers re-tested studies like it, the results fell apart after small changes to the method.
Researchers John Donohue and Justin Wolfers re-ran the studies that found big effects. Small changes gave very different answers, leaving deep doubt about whether executions cut murders or even raise them. The US uses executions so rarely that their effect is hard to pick out from the normal ups and downs in murder rates. In 2012 a US National Research Council panel said these studies should not be used to judge the death penalty's effect on murder.
“previous inferences of large deterrent effects based upon specific examples, functional forms, control variables, comparison groups, or IV strategies are extremely fragile”
National Bureau of Economic Research·Uses and Abuses of Empirical Evidence in the Death Penalty Debate (NBER Working Paper 11982)Independent research institute · 30 Jan 2006 ↗Further sources for this card
- American Law and Economics Review (Oxford University Press) · Does Capital Punishment Have a Deterrent Effect? New Evidence from Postmoratorium Panel Data (Dezhbakhsh, Rubin and Shepherd, 2003) ↗
- PLoS ONE (via PubMed Central, NIH) · Messing Up Texas?: A Re-Analysis of the Effects of Executions on Homicides (quotes the 2012 National Research Council conclusion) ↗
- DP-03Unsupported
“Research has proven that the death penalty does not deter murder.”
Not proven either way. A US National Research Council panel found that the research cannot tell us whether the death penalty lowers murders, raises them, or makes no difference.
The panel, in 2012, said these studies should not be used to judge the death penalty's effect on murder, in either direction. Some studies find no deterrence. One re-checked Texas executions from 1994 to 2005 and found no clear sign that they cut murders, even though an earlier study of the same years said each execution was followed by about 2.5 fewer murders. Its authors warned that results like these change a lot with the method used. It is fair to say there is no good proof that it deters. That is not the same as proof that it does not.
“research to date on the effect of capital punishment is not informative about whether capital punishment decreases, increases, or has no effect on homicide rates”
PLoS ONE (via PubMed Central, NIH)·Messing Up Texas?: A Re-Analysis of the Effects of Executions on Homicides (PLoS ONE)Government / parliament · 23 Sept 2015 ↗ - DP-04False
“When Canada abolished the death penalty in 1976, murders went up.”
Wrong: Canada's murder rate peaked in 1975, the year before it abolished the death penalty, at 3.03 per 100,000 people. It then fell, and by 1999 it was 42% lower.
In 2024 Canada's rate was 1.91 per 100,000 people. Murder rates also fell in the US and many other countries, so this does not prove that ending the death penalty made murders fall. But the rise that people feared did not happen.
“From 1975 to 1999, despite yearly fluctuations, the homicide rate has gradually declined”
Statistics Canada·Homicide in Canada, 1999 (Juristat, Vol. 20, No. 9)Official statistics · 1 Oct 2000 ↗Further sources for this card
- DP-05False
“Executing a murderer is cheaper than keeping them in prison for life.”
Wrong, based on US evidence: death penalty cases cost more. A study of North Carolina found the state would have spent almost $11 million less each year if it had no death penalty.
The study compared what North Carolina really spent on death penalty cases over two recent years with what they would likely have cost without it. The savings include appeals and prison costs. Costs stayed high even though death sentences had become rarer and executions were not happening. Across the US, only about 1 in 8 people sentenced to death from 1973 to 2004 had been executed by the end of 2004.
“the state would have spent almost $11 million less each year on criminal justice activities”
American Law and Economics Review (Oxford University Press)·Potential Savings from Abolition of the Death Penalty in North Carolina (American Law and Economics Review)Peer-reviewed research · 11 Dec 2009 ↗ - DP-06Mostly false
“In Britain, murderers are let out after just a few years.”
Mostly wrong for England and Wales. Everyone found guilty of murder must get a life sentence. For an adult, the judge starts from a minimum of 15 years before release can even be considered, rising to 25 or 30 years, or a whole life order, for the worst murders.
The judge can then move the minimum term up or down for other factors in the case. Release after it is not automatic: the Parole Board decides. Anyone released stays 'on licence', with rules to follow, for the rest of their life, and can be sent back to prison. A whole life order means never being released, except in exceptional compassionate cases.
“If you’re found guilty of murder, a court must give you a life sentence.”
GOV.UK·Types of prison sentence: Life sentencesGovernment / parliament · 19 Aug 2020 ↗ - DP-07Unsupported
“Lethal injection is a painless and peaceful way to die.”
Not proven. A 2005 study in The Lancet found that 43 of 49 executed prisoners (88%) had less of the sleeping drug in their blood than surgery needs, and 21 (43%) had levels that could mean they were aware.
The drugs are meant to put the prisoner into a deep sleep before the breathing and heart stop. In Texas and Virginia, the study found, the people giving the drugs had no training in putting people to sleep for surgery, and nobody checked whether the prisoner was properly asleep. The blood was tested after death, and the study was debated in letters to the journal. A 2007 follow-up by the same team said the usual view that it always brings a peaceful and painless death is questionable. Both studies looked at the three-drug method that was usual at the time.
“post-mortem concentrations of thiopental in the blood were lower than that required for surgery in 43 of 49 executed inmates (88%)”
The Lancet (via NCBI PubMed, NIH)·Inadequate anaesthesia in lethal injection for execution (The Lancet, PubMed abstract)Government / parliament · 16 Apr 2005 ↗Further sources for this card
- DP-08Mostly true
“About 1 in 25 people sentenced to death in the US is innocent.”
Close: a major 2014 study estimated that at least 4.1% (about 1 in 25) of people sentenced to death would be cleared if their cases stayed open long enough. It is an estimate, not a count of known cases.
The study looked at 7,482 people sentenced to death in the US from 1973 to 2004. By the end of 2004, 1.6% had already been cleared. The authors think 4.1% is more likely too low than too high. They think the share is lower among people actually executed, because cases get checked hardest as an execution gets close. Even so, they say it is all but certain that several of the 1,320 people executed since 1977 were innocent.
“if all death-sentenced defendants remained under sentence of death indefinitely, at least 4.1% would be exonerated”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (via PubMed Central, NIH)·Rate of false conviction of criminal defendants who are sentenced to death (PNAS)Government / parliament · 28 Apr 2014 ↗ - DP-09Mostly true
“In the US, who gets the death penalty depends on the race of the victim.”
Mostly right, but the main review is old. In 1990 a US government review of 28 studies found that in 82% of them, the victim's race affected who was charged with a crime that could bring the death penalty, or who got it. People who killed white victims were more likely to be sentenced to death than people who killed Black victims.
The pattern held across different states, data and methods, and in strong and weak studies alike. The evidence on the race of the accused person was less clear: more than half the studies found it mattered, but the results varied. The review covered cases up to 1988, so it may not show how things are today.
“In 82 percent of the studies, race of victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder”
US General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office)·Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates Pattern of Racial Disparities (GAO/GGD-90-57)Government / parliament · 26 Feb 1990 ↗ - DP-10True
“Britain hanged innocent people before it got rid of the death penalty.”
Confirmed: Timothy Evans was hanged for murdering his daughter, then given a free pardon in 1966. The government told Parliament the pardon was an admission by the state that he was wrongly put to death.
An official inquiry found it was more likely than not that Evans did not kill his daughter. Derek Bentley was hanged in 1953 after his younger friend, Christopher Craig, shot dead a police officer. In 1998 the Court of Appeal overturned Bentley's conviction, after a review found serious failings at his trial.
“in this case is an admission by the State that Evans was wrongly put to death”
UK Parliament (Hansard)·The Case of Timothy Evans (House of Lords, Hansard, 18 October 1966)Government / parliament · 18 Oct 1966 ↗Further sources for this card
- DP-11True
“Britain cannot bring back the death penalty without breaking its human rights promises.”
Confirmed: the UK has signed up to Protocol 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans the death penalty in all cases, even in wartime. It came into force for the UK on 1 February 2004.
Countries that join cannot suspend it or sign up to only part of it. It is also part of the UK's Human Rights Act. Bringing back executions would mean breaking this treaty. Britain stopped hanging for murder in 1965, made that permanent in 1969, and ended the death penalty for all crimes in 1998.
“The death penalty shall be abolished. No one shall be condemned to such penalty or executed.”
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (GOV.UK)·Protocol No. 13 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, concerning the Abolition of the Death Penalty in all Circumstances (Treaty Series No. 3 (2011), Cm 8034)Government / parliament · 1 Mar 2011 ↗ - DP-12Mixed
“The world is giving up on the death penalty.”
Partly true: 170 countries have abolished the death penalty or stopped using it, in law or in practice. But the countries that still use it have been carrying out many more executions in recent years.
The UN says 113 countries have abolished it completely. Even so, 1,153 executions were recorded in 2023, the most in eight years, and that leaves out China, which does not publish clear figures. In 2025 Iran reportedly executed at least 1,500 people, Saudi Arabia at least 356, and the US 47, its highest number in 16 years.
“So far, 170 countries have abolished or introduced a moratorium on the death penalty either in law or in practice.”
UN News (United Nations)·'Alarming' increase in use of death penalty last year, despite global trend towards abolitionIntergovernmental body · 19 Jan 2026 ↗Further sources for this card
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