Blogging is going to be light from here through Memorial Day …. but we will back to a more typical posting cycle in late May. In the meantime, we thought we would briefly highlight an interesting visual we saw over at Flowing Data. This visual produced by Good Magazine maps the use of the death penalty across various countries.
or
104 countries have the death penalty, 93 don’t
Even in Western Europe, that collection of governments most opposed to capital punishment, their citizens actually do support the death penalty. From the French daily Le Monde, December 2006 (1):
Percentage of respondents in favor of executing Saddam Hussein:
France: 58%
Germany: 53%
Spain: 51%
Italy: 46%
USA: 82%
Great Britain: 69%
We are led to believe there isn’t death penalty support in England or Europe. European governments won’t allow executions when their populations support it: they’re anti democratic. (2)
Death penalty support is much deeper and much wider than we are often led to believe, with significant percentages of those who say they, generally, oppose the death penalty, actually supporting it when it is a true death eligible crime.
(1) The recent results of a poll conducted by Novatris/Harris for the French daily Le Monde on the death penalty shocked the editors and writers at Germany’s left-leaning SPIEGEL ONLINE (Dec. 22, 2006). When asked whether they favored the death penalty for Saddam Hussein, a majority of respondents in Germany, France and Spain responded in the affirmative.
(2)An excellent article, “Death in Venice: Europe’s Death-penalty Elitism”, details this anti democratic position (The New Republic, by Joshua Micah Marshall, 7/31/2000). Another situation reflects this same mentality. “(Pres. Mandela says ‘no’ to reinstating the death penalty in South Africa – Nelson Mandela against death penalty though 93% of public favors it, according to poll. “(JET, 10/14/96). Pres. Mandela explained that “. . . it was necessary to inform the people about other strategies the government was using to combat crime.” As if the people didn’t understand. South Africa has had some of the highest crime rates in the world in the ten years, since Mandela’s comments. “The number of murders committed each year in the country is as high as 47,000, according to Interpol statistics.” As of 2006, 72% of South Africans want the death penalty back. (“South Africans Support Death Penalty”, 5/14/2006, Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research
NOTE: Some recent polls – with no mention of specific crimes.
97%+ of Guatemalans support the death penalty. 2.6% oppose
(telephone survey, newspaper Prensa Libre, 2/14/08)
www(dot)latinamericapress.org/article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=5545
79% support the resumption of hanging in Jamaica. 16% oppose. (Bill Johnson Polling for The Gleaner (Jamaica) Newspaper, 1/12-13/08
Two-thirds of Czechs for death penalty reintroduction – poll
Prague- Almost two-thirds of Czechs believe that death penalty should exist in the Czech Republic, while one-third believes the opposite, according to a poll the CVVM agency conducted in May and released. June 12, 2008, Ceskenoviny.cz/news/
I learned a lot of information from this piece and will definitely keep it in my RSS. Thanks for the effort you took to expand upon this topic so thoroughly. I look forward to future posts.