GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ -- According to a recent series of Gallup surveys in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, Americans are much more supportive of the death penalty than are either Britons or Canadians. By about a 2-to-1 margin, 64% to 30%, Americans support the death penalty for a person convicted of murder, while in Canada, a slight majority, 53%, oppose the death penalty, and 44% favor it. In Britain, people lean in favor by 49% to 45%. Unlike the United States, neither Canada nor Great Britain has the death penalty.
These results are little changed from 2003. Britain and Canada each show slight declines in support, while support in the United States has essentially stayed the same.
In the United States and Canada, men are 10 to 11 percentage points more likely to favor the death penalty than are women. In Britain, however, the two groups indicate about the same level of support.
In all three countries, there are only slight differences by age. In Britain, the oldest group shows the most support, while in the other two countries, people in the 50 to 64 age range are most in favor.
In Britain, there are hardly any differences among the four groups classified by gender and age. But in Canada and the United States, the differences are substantial. Both countries show at least a six-point difference between men and women, regardless of age. But in Canada, the larger gender gap is among younger people (under age 50), with 48% of men but only 35% of women in favor -- a 13-point gap. In the United States, the gender gap is more pronounced in the older group: 75% of men vs. 58% of women aged 50 and older are in favor, a 17-point gender gap.
Another way of looking at the data shows that in the United States, there is essentially no difference is support between older and younger females (60% vs. 59%), while older males are more in favor than younger males, 75% to 66%, respectively.
In Canada, by contrast, younger and older males express about the same level of support (48% vs. 50%, respectively), while older females are more in favor than younger females (44% to 35%).
Death Penalty a Significant Partisan Issue in U.S. and Canada, but not Britain
In the United States, there is a 21-point gap in support between Republicans and Democrats, 77% to 56%. In Canada and Britain, which have multiparty systems, two-party comparisons are less relevant. One indication of partisan division is a comparison of attitudes among people who approve of the job the president or prime minister is doing, with those who disapprove. The approval ratings of the leaders in each country were all very close, from 35% to 39%, which provides a useful framework for this issue.
In Britain and Canada, the prime ministers at the time of the surveys came from the more liberal parties in their countries, while in the United States the president is from the more conservative party. In all three cases, the conservative group expresses more support than the liberal group -- though in Britain the difference is relatively slight. Forty-five percent who approve of Prime Minister Tony Blair favor the death penalty, compared with 51% among Britons who disapprove of his job performance.
In Canada and the United States, the death penalty issue appears to be more partisan -- there is a 15-point gap between Canadians who approved and disapproved of then-Prime Minister Paul Martin, and a 21-point gap between Bush approvers and disapprovers in the United States.
Survey Methods
Results in the United States are based on telephone interviews with 1,012 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Oct. 13-16, 2005. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. The survey was conducted by Gallup USA.
Results in Canada are based on telephone interviews with 1,003 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Dec. 12-18, 2005. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. The survey was conducted by Gallup Canada.
Results in Great Britain are based on telephone interviews with 1,010 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Dec. 12-20, 2005. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. The survey was conducted by Gallup UK.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.