BJS has released Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables. This report presents statistics on prisoners who were under sentence of death in 2023 and historical trends in executions. It describes the jurisdictions that carried out executions in 2023 and includes advance counts of 2024 executions. It also presents demographic characteristics (including sex, race, ethnicity, age, education, and marital status) and the criminal history of persons under sentence of death. BJS collects information about capital punishment each year through its National Prisoner Statistics program.
The report includes five supplemental documents, including information on the status of death penalty laws in 2023, state capital offenses, federal capital offenses, authorized methods of execution by state, and the number of prisoners executed in the United States between 1977–2024 by jurisdiction. These documents are accessible on the report’s detail page.
Capital Punishment, 2023 – Statistical Tables (NCJ 310309) was written by BJS Statistician Tracy L. Snell. The report, related documents, and additional information about BJS’s statistical publications and programs are available on the BJS website at bjs.ojp.gov.
BJS has released 2022 and 2023 datasets for Capital Punishment in the United States (NPS-8) through the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. The NPS-8 provides annual data on prisoners under a sentence of death, as well as those who had their sentences commuted or vacated and prisoners who were executed. It collects individual-level data annually on—
- sociodemographic characteristics of persons under sentence of death (age, sex, race, ethnicity, marital status, and level of education at the time of the capital offense)
- criminal history (prior felony convictions and prior convictions for criminal homicide and legal status at the time of the capital offense)
- date of death sentence and status of death sentence at yearend
- date and method of removal from under sentence of death.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice is the principal federal agency responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating reliable statistics on crime and criminal justice in the United States.
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