Jiang Shanhe, Hu Ming, Lambert Eric G
1 Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA.
2 Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Int J Offender Ther Comp Criminol. 2018 Oct;62(14):4714-4735. doi: 10.1177/0306624X18767573. Epub 2018 Apr 3.
China's current Criminal Law has 46 death-eligible offenses, and China executes more people than any other country in the world. However, there is a lack of study of attitudes toward capital punishment for specific offenses, and no death penalty view comparison between college students and regular citizens in China was found. This study was taken to address these limitations. Using a sample of 401 respondents from Zhejiang, China, in 2016, the present study found that more than 72% of respondents favored the death penalty without any specification of crime types. Level of death penalty support differed by various specific crimes. As expected, relative to college students, general population citizens were more likely to support capital punishment. Both groups had the highest death penalty support for murder. The study also revealed similar and different reasons behind death penalty attitudes between college students and regular citizens.
中国现行刑法中有46种可判处死刑的罪行，且中国执行死刑的人数比世界上任何其他国家都多。然而，目前缺乏针对特定罪行的死刑态度研究，在中国也未发现大学生与普通民众之间的死刑观点比较。本研究旨在解决这些局限性。2016年，本研究以来自中国浙江的401名受访者为样本，发现超过72%的受访者支持死刑，且未对犯罪类型作出任何具体说明。对死刑的支持程度因各种具体罪行而异。正如预期的那样，相对于大学生，普通民众更有可能支持死刑。两组对于谋杀罪的死刑支持率最高。该研究还揭示了大学生和普通民众在死刑态度背后的异同原因。
