Citation

Mangum M. Soc. Justice Res. 2019; 32(4): 431-444.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11211-019-00341-9

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The division of opinions among Americans over the use of the death penalty is owed to a myriad of factors. While a number of works have examined public opinion on the death penalty, the extant literature does not examine the role of social capital as a determinant of support for or opposition to the death penalty. Here, it is argued that social capital explains in part why some Americans oppose the death penalty while other Americans do not. This investigation contends that social capital makes people less likely to support government action to kill convicted murderers. This hypothesis is confirmed. Utilizing data taken from the 2008 American National Election Study, the results of the logistic regression analyses show that social capital is inversely related to support for the death penalty.

Language: en

Keywords

Capital punishment; Death penalty; Prosocial attitudes; Social capital