Yields annual national and state-level yearend counts of persons sentenced to death and executed. Data collected include offender demographic characteristics, prior criminal histories, criminal justice system status at the time of the capital offense, date of death sentence, and date and type of sentence disposition. The collection also includes summary information on the status of and changes to death penalty statutes.
On This Page |
Data Experts |
Collection Period |
Questionnaires |
Report of Inmates Under Sentence of Death | ||
2009 PDF (132K) | 2006 PDF (53K) | 2004 PDF | 1995 PDF | ||
Status of Death Statutes No Statute in Force | ||
2008 PDF (82K) | 2005 NPS-8B (49K) | ||
Status of Death Statutes Statute in Force | ||
2008 PDF (103K) | 2005 NPS-8C (44K) |
Methodology |
Data on persons under sentence of death on December 31 are obtained from the department of corrections in each jurisdiction authorizing the death penalty during the report year. 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.
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 population under sentence of death not at sentencing but at the time they are admitted to a state or federal correctional facility; (2) If inmates entered prison under a death sentence or were reported as being relieved of a death sentence in one year but the court had acted in the previous year, the counts are adjusted to reflect the dates of court decisions (see the note on table 4 for the affected jurisdictions); and (3) NPS-8 counts are always for the last day of the calendar year and will differ from counts for more recent periods.All data in this report have been reviewed for accuracy by the data providers in each jurisdiction prior to publication.
Publications & Products |
Capital Punishment, 2005 Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death at yearend and of persons executed. This annual BJS report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during the year. | |
Press Release | PDF (389K) | ASCII file (32K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 23K) | To order paper version Part of the Capital Punishment Series |
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Capital Punishment, 2004 Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death at yearend and of persons executed. This annual BJS report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during the year. | |
Press Release | PDF (161K) | ASCII file (27K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 22K) | To order paper version Part of the Capital Punishment Series |
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Capital Punishment, 2003 Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death at yearend and of persons executed. This annual BJS report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during the year. | |
Press Release | PDF (539K) | ASCII file (26K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 39K) | Codebooks and Datasets Part of the Capital Punishment Series |
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Capital Punishment, 2002 Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death at yearend and of persons executed. This annual BJS report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during the year. | |
Press Release | PDF (335K) | ASCII file (25K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 39K) | Codebooks and Datasets Part of the Capital Punishment Series |
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Capital Punishment, 2001 Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death at yearend and of persons executed. This annual BJS report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during the year. | |
Press Release | PDF (402K) | ASCII file (25K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 65K) | Codebooks and Datasets Part of the Capital Punishment Series |
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Capital Punishment, 2000 Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death at yearend and of persons executed. This annual BJS report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during the year. | |
Press Release | PDF (121K) | ASCII file (29K) | Spreadsheet (Zip format 25K) | Codebooks and Datasets Part of the Capital Punishment Series |
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Capital Punishment, 1999 Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death at yearend and of persons executed. This annual BJS report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during the year. | |
Press Release | PDF (85K) | ASCII file (44K) | Spreadsheet (18K) | Codebooks and Datasets Part of the Capital Punishment Series |
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Capital Punishment, 1998 Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death at yearend and of persons executed. This annual BJS report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during the year. | |
Press Release | PDF (121K) | ASCII file (42K) | Spreadsheet (28K) | Codebooks and Datasets Part of the Capital Punishment Series |
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Capital Punishment, 1997 Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death at yearend and of persons executed. This annual BJS report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during the year. | |
Press Release | PDF (229K) | ASCII file (86K) | Spreadsheet (35K) | Codebooks and Datasets Part of the Capital Punishment Series |
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Capital Punishment, 1996 Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death at yearend and of persons executed. This annual BJS report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during the year. | |
Press Release | PDF (148K) | ASCII file (89K) | Codebooks and Datasets Part of the Capital Punishment Series |
Capital Punishment, 2009 - Statistical Tables Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2009, and persons executed in 2009. | |
PDF (505K) | ASCII file (10K) | Zip Format (Spreadsheet 24K) |
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Capital Punishment, 2008 - Statistical Tables Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2008, and persons executed in 2008. Preliminary data on executions by states during 2009 are included. | |
Acrobat file (PDF 1M) | ASCII file (4K) | Zip format (14K) | To order paper version |
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Capital Punishment, 2007 - Statistical Tables Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2007, and persons executed in 2007. | |
HTML | PDF (386K) | All tables in zip format (Zip format 13K) |
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Capital Punishment, 2006 - Statistical Tables Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2006, and of persons executed in 2006. | |
HTML | PDF (386K) | All tables in zip format (Zip format 13K) |
Capital Punishment, 2005 "The number of death row inmates declined for the fifth straight year during 2005" | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
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Capital Punishment, 2004 "Number of death row inmates declined for fourth year during 2004" | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
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Capital Punishment, 2003 "Number of death row inmates declined for third straight year during 2003" | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
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Capital Punishment, 2002 "U.S. executions up for first time in three years" | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
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Capital Punishment 2001 "Bureau of Justice Statistics releases annual report on Capital Punishment" | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
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Capital Punishment 2000 "Eighty-five offenders executed during 2000, 13 percent drop from the previous year. Thirty-seven States and Federal government held almost 3,600 inmates on death row" | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
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Capital Punishment, 1999 "Twenty states executed 98 prisoners in 1999, most since 1951. Average Death Row Stay Was 11 Years and 11 Months " | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
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Capital Punishment 1998 "Eighteen States executed 68 prisoners during 1998 -- eighty-nine executed so far this year" | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
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Capital Punishment 1997 "Seventeen states executed 74 prisoners during 1997" | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
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Capital Punishment, 1996 "Prisoner executions rise significantly" | |
Press Release | More information about this release |
Related Topics |
Bureau of Justice StatisticsBJS Statistical Principals and Practices Scientific Integrity Statement OJP Freedom of Information Act |
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