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Description & Citation--Study No. 23900

Bibliographic Description

Study No.:

23900

Title:

Executions in the United States, 1608-1940: The ESPY File -- Summary Data of Executions Collected by M. Watt Espy Between 1986 and 1996

Principal Investigator(s):

Espy, M. Watt

Allen, Howard, Southern Illinois University - Carbondale

Clubb, Jerome M., University of Michigan

Funding:

National Science Foundation (SES 84-09725)

Bibliographic Citation:

Espy, M. Watt, Howard Allen, and Jerome M. Clubb. Executions in the United States, 1608-1940: The ESPY File -- Summary Data of Executions Collected by M. Watt Espy Between 1986 and 1996. ICPSR23900-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2008-12-12. doi:10.3886/ICPSR23900.v1

Scope of Study

Summary:

This collection consists of four summary variables based on new data collected by M. Watt Espy between 1986 and 1996 after he corrected and updated the data in 1992. See the related collection, EXECUTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1608-2002: THE ESPY FILE (ICPSR 8451). The summary variables consist of the ethnicity of the executed, the state, territory, district or colony of execution, the decade of execution, and the geographical region of execution. They were complete as of March 1, 1996.

Subject Terms:

capital punishment, crime, criminal justice system, executions, historical data, offenders, offenses

Smallest Geographic Unit:

United States

Geographic Coverage:

United States

Time Period:
  • 1608--1940

Date of Collection:
  • 1986--1996

Unit of Observation:

individual

Universe:

Executions that occurred under civil authority in the United States or within territory that later became the United States.

Data Types:

aggregate data

Methodology

Mode of Data Collection:

record abstracts

Data Source:

state Department of Corrections records, newspapers, county histories, proceedings of state and local courts, holdings of historical societies, and other listings of executions

Extent of Processing:

All archived data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. The archive also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, the archive performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Performed consistency checks.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Access and Availability

Note:

Detailed file-level information (such as record length, case count, and variable count) is listed in the file manifest.

Original ICPSR Release:

2008-12-12