Who is on Death Row?

Currently, about twenty-seven hundred people in the USA are on death row. Of these, the majority are white (58 percent) males (98 percent) with an average age of thirty-six, who have completed the eleventh grade and are not married (73 percent). More than forty death row inmates were teens when they committed the crime for which they were condemned. Victor Streib, a legal scholar of some renown, has compiled important data on the use and abuse of the death penalty for juvenile offenders. Streib found that of the 5,253 death sentences imposed between 1973 and 1994, 137 involved youths who were under 18 when they committed their crime; of these 13 were under age 15. During the 1973-1994 time period, 9 youthful offenders were executed.

One of the most controversial issues surrounding the death penalty is whether African-American defendants are more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants; today, about 41 percent of the inmates on death row are African-American, and about 2 percent are members of other minority groups.

No issue in the criminal justice system is more controversial or emotional than the implementation of the death penalty. Opponents and proponents have formu­lated a number of powerful arguments in support of their positions.

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