Live Poster Session: https://wesleyan.zoom.us/j/97154920619
Meeting ID: 971 5492 0619
Taylor Vatel
I am a sophomore at Wesleyan University from Brooklyn, New York. As a Government major pursuing a career in the legal field, I’m deeply interested in studying the role of public opinion in shaping the country’s legal institutions across time periods. I am especially interested in observing these relationships in the context of recent partisan divides, examining how increasing rates of political polarization have caused public opinion to diverge more intensely on many legal issues. I currently serve on the board of the Ujamaa Black Student Union, I am also the Vice President of the Student of Color Pre-Law Association and Column Leader for the Domestic Issues section of the Arcadia Political Review. Through these positions I aim to expand upon my studies, actively engaging with current issues in American legal and political landscapes.
Abstract: The use of capital punishment has been a consistent site of public debate in American criminal justice policy. Over the history of its usage, public attitudes towards the death penalty have evolved in response to different socio-political contexts, serving as an evolving record of how citizens perceive punitive justice. However, much of the existing research surrounding capital punishment is concentrated around the 1990s and 2000s, likely a result of its heightened sentencing and executions during this period. As national support for the death penalty has declined in recent years, this study seeks to fill the gap in research, examining how relationships have evolved in the current decade considering historical racial tensions surrounding capital punishment. The present analysis will investigate whether recorded racial and partisan trends remain significant in contemporary contexts, determining whether partisan affiliation moderates predicted racial trends in death penalty attitudes. Using data collected from the 2021 General Social Survey (GSS), this analysis examines survey responses of 3,158 White and Black American adults, to better understand how different social identities operate concurrently to influence public perceptions of punitive justice in the US. Bivariate analyses reveal significant associations with capital punishment support for both race and partisanship (p<0.05). Logistic regression results indicated that Black respondents had roughly 60% lower odds of supporting the death penalty compared to White respondents. From these regression analyses, ‘Strong Republicans’ also exhibited substantially higher odds of support than ‘Strong Democrats’. However, a moderated logistic regression revealed that, when controlling for covariates, racial differences in death penalty opinion were statistically insignificant within most of the observed partisan categories. While racial differences in capital punishment support were not significant within most parties, Black Americans identifying as ‘Not Very Strong Republicans’ exhibited approximately 92% lower odds of capital punishment support relative to White Americans within the same coalition. Through a layered, multivariate approach, this analysis seeks to build a foundation for understanding how social identity influences public policy opinion in this modern political era, as racial and political relations adapt to evolving social contexts.