State Death Penalty Analysis

Abstract

The United States has used capital punishment since colonization. Over time some states have abolished it and others have not. There are many databases that have collected information on each state’s policy for the death penalty. Using these databases, I will take a deeper look at the death penalty in the United States as it varies from state to state. I will be using a few different death penalty databases, such as The Death Penalty Information Center, The Condemned and End of its Rope. After I gather data, using RStudio Cloud, I will analyze the data and generate statistics, graphs, and maps. The main areas I would like to look at are: which states still impose the death penalty, when did the other states abolish the death penalty, and what are the different methods of execution that different states use and how has that changed over time.