Exploring Death Row: Eye-Opening Statistics You Need to Know
Individuals sentenced to death often have a unique and complex history that leads to their arrest, conviction, and sentence. DPIC explores some of these pathways, including childhood abuse, inadequate counsel, and the use of character witness testimony.
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Number of Inmates on Death Row
For those who have been convicted of capital crimes, death row is a place where they spend a seeming eternity awaiting their executions. This incarceration is often hidden away in prisons in out-of-the-way rural areas. They are separated from their families and friends. They are only allowed limited contact with their lawyers and a few weekly visitors. Their lives are shaped by long hours of isolation and uncertainty about their futures. Some people have argued that this living hell can contribute to mental disorders. Others have noted that the long wait to be killed creates a psychological trauma that can destroy a person’s will to live. In the United States, death row inmates are housed in units called “pods,” with two correctional officers monitoring them around the clock. Each pod contains 24 single cells that open into a dayroom area with a television, stainless steel tables, and showers. Offenders must spend most of their time in their cells, except for one hour a day when they are escorted from their cellblocks to outdoor exercise areas where they can walk, play basketball, or jog. Many prisoners on death row have been wrongfully convicted. In fact, since 1973, more than 138 people have been released from death row because they were probably innocent. Wrongful convictions can result from false confessions, mistaken eyewitnesses, jailhouse snitches, junk science, and prosecutorial abuse. In examining death row statistics, it becomes evident that there is a pressing need for a comprehensive reevaluation of the criminal justice system to ensure fairness and accuracy in capital punishment cases.
Number of Executions in the U.S.
The number of executions has declined sharply in recent years, and new death sentences have decreased even more. The decline is a direct result of the public’s disgust with capital punishment and mounting evidence that it does not deter murder. In addition, a growing number of states have either abolished the death penalty or made it rare through legislative or judicial action. Colorado, New Hampshire, Washington, Delaware, Maryland, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Mexico have all done away with it, while Governors in California*, Oregon*, and Pennsylvania have imposed moratoriums on executions. State laws vary in how a sentence to die is determined, but all allow prosecutors or judges to consider aggravating and mitigating circumstances before imposing a death sentence. A judge may also grant a pardon or reduce a death sentence to life in prison. The president is the only person who can pardon a federal death sentence.
Wrongful convictions and executions are a persistent problem in the U.S., and they can happen in many ways, including bogus confessions, false eyewitness testimony (often by people who were promised lenient treatment or cash), and junk science. Innocent people spend years on death row, often because they are poor and must rely on incompetent or underfunded lawyers. As a result, they are more likely to suffer from the effects of stress and poverty, which can lead to mental retardation.
Number of Inmates on Death Row in the World
The number of death row inmates worldwide continues to rise, while executions are slowing down around the world as states struggle to find suppliers for lethal injection drugs. A death sentence means a life in solitary confinement, often for decades before an execution is carried out. This can exacerbate mental illness, and for older inmates with increasing physical disabilities, it can become a form of torture. Many people who have been put on death row are later exonerated. One study found that for every 8.3 people executed between 1972 and this year, one was wrongly convicted through official misconduct, including shoddy police work, coerced confessions, or mishandled evidence.
The world’s prison system is in a state of flux, with more countries abolishing the death penalty than ever before and others slowing down executions. The use of solitary confinement to hold prisoners on death row is also coming under increased scrutiny as the effects on their mental and physical health are documented. Across the globe, prison officials are increasingly considering alternatives to long-term solitary confinement for those on death row. In addition, studies continue to reveal the discriminatory and arbitrary ways in which the death penalty is administered — in the United States, for example, where Blacks are more likely to be exonerated from death row than whites.
Number of Inmates on Death Row in the U.S.
There are currently 2,557 inmates on Death Row in the United States. They are awaiting execution by lethal injection, electrocution, gassing, or hanging. In addition, 184 people have been on Death Row for decades, including prisoners who were wrongfully convicted of a crime. Prisoners on Death Row spend at least 22 hours a day locked alone in a cell, waiting to be executed. They don’t see anyone else except for correctional officers, and they eat through trays that are inserted into their cells through slots. During their time on Death Row, many of them have had their lives destroyed by living with the knowledge that they will be killed for a crime they didn’t commit.
These prisoners are also deprived of a sense of hope. Inmates can receive mail and may have radios and 13-inch televisions in their cells, but these can only receive over-the-air broadcasts (no cable). Prisoners on Death Row can also attend church services and watch television programs through a facility channel. The solitary confinement experienced by death row prisoners is considered cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution. It costs too much, doesn’t do anything to rehabilitate prisoners, and exacerbates mental illness. The ACLU has long been a leader in the fight against the use of long-term solitary confinement to punish prisoners on Death Row.
