The relationship between perceptions of prison and support for the death penalty versus life without parole

Abstract

According to Bowers' ‘spuriousness theory,’ people only support the death penalty because they believe that the currently available alternative punishments are insufficiently harsh or meaningful. I test his theory by estimating the relationship between Americans' perceptions of prisons and their support for the death penalty using data drawn from a national, random sample of the US population. I find that people who perceive prison environments to be insufficiently harsh are also more likely to support the death penalty and less likely to support the alternative punishment of life imprisonment without parole. The relationship between people's perceptions of prison and their support for the death penalty is robust even controlling for their symbolic beliefs and demographic characteristics. I discuss the implications of these findings for theories of public opinion about punishment, capital sentencing, and the politics of criminal justice in the USA.