Public opinion and the death penalty in Australia

We examine correlates of public support for capital punishment using data from a large representative national sample of Australians. Personal fear of crime does not explain support for capital punishment, but rating crime fighting as a high national priority does. A finding that women are less supportive of the death penalty than men but more supportive of stiffer sentences raises significant theoretical issues for feminist criminology. Certain aspects of conservatism are unrelated to support for capital punishment, but others are important. Aspects that matter concern resentment toward outgroups, especially Aborigines and non-English-speaking migrants; this finding suggests that criminals can be viewed as yet another outgroup. We advance an elite leadership hypothesis; according to this argument, when political elites abolished capital punishment in the past, it was not in response to pressure from public opinion, but in spite of it. The act of abolition then shifted public opinion away from support for capital punishment. This important hypothesis, originally proposed by Zimring and Hawkins (1986), is supported by the Australian data, although the effect is much weaker than they proposed. The analysis suggests a number of new directions for future research.