Current death penalty support by country ?

[Tender Branson]

I tried to find some polls about it, but didn't find much.

As you may know (or not), a month before the federal election in 2013 Frank Stronach came out in favour of reintroducing the death penalty in Austria.

But: the death penalty is a HUGE no-go in Austria and even his own "Team Stronach" quickly distanced themselves from their leaders comments.

Heck, even FPÖ's Strache strongly ruled out the death penalty when asked about it after the Stronach comments.

So, when it comes to polls, there have been none until this debate was held on PULS 4:

And on 10:15pm, Frank Stronach will be in the PULS 4 election arena, taking questions from the audience and from 2 journalists.

The very accurate pollster OGM does the debate surveys for PULS 4 and they polled the death penalty too.

Result: Only 14% of the 500 debate watchers (representative of the Austrian electorate) support the death penalty.

What about other countries ? Does anyone know ?

[politicus]

I posted on for Denmark some time ago; either in the election thread or the Great Nordic. You should be able to find it quite easily with search. 20% in favour.

[Tender Branson]

Ah yeah, thx. I would have expected that Denmark was equally low.

But what about France/Italy (Antonio maybe) ?

And other countries ...

[Tender Branson]

Germany also with rather low support for re-introduction:



Source: Allensbach surveys, which also do federal election polls

[Antonio the Sixth]

Last poll I heard about in France, I think about 40% supported the death penalty. No idea about Italy.

[Lief 🗽]

Did Germany have a crime wave in the 70s and 80s like the US did? Because that 44% in 1979 stands out.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

British surveys on this matter are infamously inconsistent,* but support for the death penalty in a generic sense is probably below 50% now. Of course even when it was much higher it was known that many people who 'supported' it were leery of actually voting for people who wanted to bring it back...

_{*It is a proud national tradition to give misleading and inconsistent answers to all forms of social survey.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Did Germany have a crime wave in the 70s and 80s like the US did? Because that 44% in 1979 stands out.

Domestic terrorism.

[ObserverIE]

Did Germany have a crime wave in the 70s and 80s like the US did? Because that 44% in 1979 stands out.

To elaborate on the answer given by my learned colleague:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction

[swl]

France: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peine_de_mort_en_France#Sondages_r.C3.A9cents

[Hatman 🍁]

Most polls suggest a majority of Canadians support the death penalty, which is very surprising.

[Citizen Hats]

Most polls suggest a majority of Canadians support the death penalty, which is very surprising.

I'm not terribly surprised. It's probably a quite similar dynamic to the one described by Sibboleth for the UK.  It's easy for people to imagine the justness of hanging Karla Homolka or Robert Pickton, but most people would be suspicious of a politician who might actually voice that feeling.  The only possibility that comes to mind would be the ever-hapless Tim Hudak, given how his chain-gang proposals went over

[Vosem]

An overwhelming majority of between 60-65% of Americans support the death penalty. This is a long-time low; in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, there was polling that showed support over 80%. Another example of American Exceptionalism.

[Famous Mortimer]

The other things, what shift has there has been on the death penalty in the US, hasn't been because people view the death penalty as barbaric or unjustified. Now a lot of liberals just think that everyone on death row is an innocent framed Black man.

[Lief 🗽]

Did Germany have a crime wave in the 70s and 80s like the US did? Because that 44% in 1979 stands out.

Domestic terrorism.

oh yeah lol, I knew that

[warandwar]

The other things, what shift has there has been on the death penalty in the US, hasn't been because people view the death penalty as barbaric or unjustified. Now a lot of liberals just think that everyone on death row is an innocent framed Black man.

Could you rephrase that in a way that makes sense?

[Famous Mortimer]

No.

[Tender Branson]

In Sweden, 18% support it - according to a 2011 poll.

Thanks to Swedish Cheese for looking it up.

[Antonio the Sixth]

In Sweden, 18% support it - according to a 2011 poll.

Again, best country in the world.

[politicus]

In Sweden, 18% support it - according to a 2011 poll.

Again, best country in the world.

Norway actually had 16% support for it right after Utøya, which is pretty impressive. With 68% against and 16% undecided. Bound to be lower now.

http://www.dagbladet.no/2011/10/07/nyheter/innenriks/terror/anders_behring_breivik/dodsstraff/18499197/

[Lumine]

The last poll on the subject here in Chile was on 2009, and it showed 63% support. We got rid of it in 2001, and while most politicians  often state that they do not support the death penalty, it does have a good level of support among the voters.

[Paleobrazilian]

Here in Brazil, according to Datafolha, in 2013 50% opposed it and 46% were favorable to it.

[Tender Branson]

In Sweden, 18% support it - according to a 2011 poll.

Again, best country in the world.

But we are giving them a run for the money: 14% (see original post).

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's amazing how some countries like Austria and the Scandinavians have seen support collapse under 20%, while others, even the most social-liberal ones like Canada, still have a majority support it. I wonder what explains these differences.

[Tender Branson]

It's amazing how some countries like Austria and the Scandinavians have seen support collapse under 20%, while others, even the most social-liberal ones like Canada, still have a majority support it. I wonder what explains these differences.

Hmm, I don't know really.

I thought the extremely low murder rate in Austria could have to do with it (in 2014, the murder rate dropped to the lowest level ever measured with 0.4/100.000 people), but that's not explaining it.

Japan, which together with Austria, ranks in the top-10 countries with the lowest murder rates has about 85% support for the death penalty !

Or maybe the low murder rate is a reason here, but not in Japan ? For cultural reasons.

But other European countries also have a low murder rate (like France), but DP support there is at ~50% ...