March 28, 2014
Why do minorities oppose death penalty across U.S. but favor it in Texas?
By Rodger Jones/Editorial Writer
The Pew Research Center is out with a new poll on the death penalty. It shows support nationally continuing to slide, the same trend that’s been playing out for a few years. You’ll see opposition still strongest among blacks and Hispanics.
As goes the nation on capital punishment, Texas typically goes the other way. Support in Texas is considerably higher than the nation’s, perhaps by 20 points or so, but it’s hard to get an apples-apples. Texas support may, in fact, have gone up a tick or two in recent years.
The one thing I struggle to understand is how Texas support remains strong across racial demographics, not to mention party affiliation. The cross tabs in the UT/Texas Tribune poll show support breaking down this way (with supporters and strong supporters of the DP added together):
Texas whites — 76% support
Texas blacks — 60% support
Texas Hispanics — 78% support
Texas Democrats — 62% support
Texas Republicans — 85% support
Shoot, even Texans who self-identified as “extremely liberal” (admittedly a small subset with high margin of error) supported capital punishment to the tune of 56 percent.
Note that Hispanic support in Texas — at 78 percent — exceeded white support in the UT/TT poll and was 38 points higher than Hispanic support nationally. (Yes, the methodology was different, but the questions were similar.)
Support among blacks in Texas was 24 points higher than blacks across the U.S.
This is especially surprising given the high proportion of blacks among wrongfully convicted Texans who have been exonerated through DNA tests and other means. Our own DA here in Dallas County, Craig Watkins, has said Texans are kidding themselves if they think the justice system is colorblind and deals everyone a fair hand. That view contributes to black opposition to the death penalty across the nation, but why not here?
Also consider that Watkins, the state’s first and only black DA, has sent more people to the death chamber in recent years than any other county DA.
On Texas’ overall support for the death penalty, observers have theorized that it stems from elected appeals judges and limited clemency powers for the governor. A sense of lingering frontier justice typically enters the conversation.
Others point to the higher rates of capital punishment across the former Confederate states. That’s a key point. Slavery was a system of dehumanization to pursue economic means, and it made it easier to mete out a more savage brand of punishment to those held in bondage. Slaves were called “stock” and were moved by “drivers.” They were inspected for sale like beasts of burden. Historians have asserted that had an impact on the self-image of black African slaves themselves.
Could that contribute to higher rates of death-penalty support among Texas blacks today? That would be a stretch and hard to fathom. (I looked around for state polls on the death penalty in Virginia and Georgia and didn’t find anything to compare Texas numbers to.)
I rather think Texans in all demographic groups more readily accept the theory of retributive justice — the “just desserts” approach, centering on punishment vs. the objectives of deterrence or rehabilitation.Central to that is a sense of proportionality that suggests there is no substitute punishment for the most heinous of crimes.
Why is that philosophy so strong here?
Given that Texas has been a career destination for millions of Northerners (including me, from Ohio) and the destination for millions from Mexico and other Catholic countries (one religious group with lower DP support), and given that Texas has become a heavily urbanized state, it’s a puzzle that support for capital punishment in Texas has been so resilient.
http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallas...in-texas.html/
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