Capital Punishment, 2016

• NCJ Number: 251430
• Date Published: April 2018
• Agencies: BJS

Annotation

The U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) presents statistics on persons under a death sentence in the United States at year-end 2016, including summary trends in the death-row population, admissions to and releases from death row, the number of persons executed, and an advance count of executions in 2017.

Abstract

At year-end 2016, 32 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) held 2,814 prisoners under a death sentence, which was 58 (2 percent) fewer than at year-end 2015. Nearly half (49 percent) of death-row prisoners at year-end 2016 were in three states: California (26 percent), Florida (14 percent), and Texas (9 percent). In 2016, Texas executed seven prisoners; Florida executed one; and California did not execute any prisoners. Twelve states received a total of 32 prisoners with a death sentence in 2016. Five states executed 20 prisoners in 2016, with Georgia (9) and Texas (7) accounting for 80 percent of these executions. In 2016, the number of prisoners on death row decreased for the sixteenth consecutive year. Data on capital punishment are collected annually as part of BJS’ National Prisoner Statistics program. 8 tables and 5 figures