Capital Punishment in the United States, 1973-2023 (ICPSR 39406)

Version Date: Jul 23, 2025

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Principal Investigator(s):
United States. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39406.v1

Version V1

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Summary

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN THE UNITED STATES, 1973-2023 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. This study examines basic sociodemographic classifications including age, sex, race and ethnicity, marital status at time of imprisonment, level of education, and state and region of incarceration. Criminal history information includes prior felony convictions and prior convictions for criminal homicide and the legal status at the time of the capital offense. Additional information is provided on those inmates removed from death row by year-end 2023. The dataset consists of one part which contains 9,692 cases and 33 variables. The file provides information on inmates whose death sentences were removed in addition to information on those inmates who were executed. The file also gives information about inmates who received a second death sentence by year-end 2023 as well as inmates who were already on death row.

Citation

United States. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Capital Punishment in the United States, 1973-2023. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-07-23. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39406.v1

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Funding

United States Department of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Statistics

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

state

Restrictions

Access to these BJS-sponsored data is restricted. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete a NACJD Restricted Data Use Agreement available from the ResearchDataGov website, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research.

Restricted Data Use Agreements available on the NACJD website are provided for reference only. Please visit the ResearchDataGov website to download the appropriate Restricted Data Use Agreement and submit your request. Once approved, data may be accessed from a requester secure site via ICPSR's secure download procedures.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1973 -- 2023

Date of Collection

2023

Data Collection Notes

  1. The inmate identification numbers were assigned by the Bureau of the Census and have no purpose outside this data collection.

  2. To see the BJS report on this data collection, please go to Capital Punishment, 2023 - Statistical Tables.
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Study Design

Capital punishment information is collected annually as part of the National Prisoner Statistics program (NPS-8). This data series is collected in two parts: data on persons under sentence of death are obtained from the department of correction in each jurisdiction currently authorizing capital punishment and are updated annually; information on the status of death penalty statutes is obtained from the Office of the Attorney General in each of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Government. Data collection forms and more detailed tables are available in Correctional Populations in the United States, published annually. NPS-8 covers all persons under sentence of death at any time during the year who were held in a State or Federal nonmilitary correctional facility. Included are capital offenders transferred from prison to mental hospitals and those who may have escaped from custody. Excluded are persons whose death sentences have been overturned by the court, regardless of their current incarceration status.

The statistics reported in this Bulletin may differ from data collected by other organizations for a variety of reasons: (1) NPS-8 adds inmates to the number under sentence of death not at sentencing but at the time they are admitted to a State or Federal correctional facility. (2) If in one year inmates entered prison under a death sentence or were reported as being relieved of a death sentence but the court had acted in the previous year, the counts are adjusted to reflect the dates of court decisions. (3) NPS counts are always for the last day of the calendar year and will differ from counts for more recent periods.

Time Method

Longitudinal

Universe

All inmates on death row since 1973 in the United States.

Unit(s) of Observation

individual

Data Source

official prison records

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

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Original Release Date

2025-07-23

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Notes

  • The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

  • One or more files in this data collection have special restrictions. Restricted data files are not available for direct download from the website; click on the Restricted Data button to learn more.