BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics

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Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
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Home | Corrections | Capital Punishment | Number under sentence of death
Number under sentence of death
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The Bureau of Justice Statistics collects annual counts of persons under sentence of death by state and federal correctional authorities. The data include details on the sex, race, Hispanic origin, education, marital status, age at time of arrest for the capital offense, legal status, and criminal history of offenders sentenced to death.

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Data Collections & Surveys

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Publications & Products


Capital Punishment in the United States, 2013 - Statistical Tables Presents information on persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2013, and persons executed in 2014.
  PDF (1M) | ASCII file (34K) | Comma-delimited format (CSV) (Zip format 54K)
Part of the Capital Punishment Series

Capital Punishment, 2012 - Statistical Tables (Revised) Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2012, and persons executed in 2012.
  PDF (765KB) | ASCII file (14KB) | Zip format (28KB)
Part of the Capital Punishment Series

Prisoners Executed Prisoners executed under civil authority in the United States, by year, region, and jurisdiction, 1977-2014.
  Spreadsheet (7K)
Part of the Capital Punishment Series

Capital Punishment, 2011 - Statistical Tables Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2011, and persons executed in 2011.
  PDF (1.1M) | ASCII file (14K) | Comma-delimited format (CSV) (Zip format 28K)
Part of the Capital Punishment Series

Capital Punishment, 2010 - Statistical Tables Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2010, and persons executed in 2010.
  PDF (800K) | ASCII file (12K) | Spreadsheets (Zip format 20K)
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)
Part of the Capital Punishment Series

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)
Part of the Capital Punishment Series

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)
Part of the Capital Punishment Series

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)
Part of the Capital Punishment Series

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)
Part of the Capital Punishment Series

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Terms & Definitions

Capital punishment Capital punishment refers to the process of sentencing convicted offenders to death for the most serious crimes (capital crimes) and carrying out that sentence. The specific offenses and circumstances which determine if a crime (usually murder) is eligible for a death sentence are defined by statute and are prescribed by Congress or any state legislature.
 
Death row Death row refers to incarcerated persons who have been sentenced to death and are awaiting execution (as in "inmates on death row"). Historically, death row was a slang term which referred to the area of a prison in which prisoners who were under a sentence of death were housed. Usage of the term continues despite the fact that many states do not maintain a separate unit or facility for condemned inmates.
 
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