Project Director

Basham, Sherah

Department Examiner

Dierenfeldt, Rick

Department

Dept. of Criminal Justice and Legal Assistant Studies

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

Differing opinions of the death penalty continually conflict with the criminal justice system regarding support or opposition. Previous studies have described how sex and race influence one’s perception of the death penalty, whereas this study emphasizes various contributing predictors aside from sex and race. This study utilizes binary logistic regression to examine the relationship between voter perceptions of police use of excessive force and support for the death penalty along with voter demographics. Secondary data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) 2020 Time Series Survey was incorporated into the data set of this study. The current study is composed of a nationwide sample of 6,583 voters based on respondents who participated in the pre-and post-national ANES survey. Findings indicated that respondents support for the death penalty varies depending on the perception of the frequency of police use of excessive force and across age, race, sex, sexual orientation, and education. Further implications of the relationship between voter perceptions of the frequency of police use of excessive force and their support for the death penalty are discussed.

Acknowledgments

Thank you, Dr. Basham, for being my thesis director and for all your support along the way! Thank you, Dr. Dierenfeldt, for being on my thesis committee and for all of the encouragement! I could not have done it without them!

Degree

B. S.; An honors thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Science.

Date

5-2023

Subject

Capital punishment--United States; Police brutality--United States

Keyword

excessive; force; police; death penalty; voter; perception

Discipline

Criminology and Criminal Justice

Document Type

Theses

Extent

27 leaves.

DCMI Type

Text

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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