Ipsos MORI poll on the death penalty

We're overdue an Ipsos-MORI voting intention poll, which Mike Smithson has suggested may be published today. In the meantime there is a new poll on the death penalty up on their website here, commissioned by Channel 4 as a tie in with a drama last week.

MORI gave people a list of crimes and asked which, if any, people thought the death penalty should be the maximum penalty for in the UK. Altogther 70% of people thought the death penalty should be available for at least one of the crimes, somewhat higher than other recent polls on capital punishment. However, only 51% thought it should be available for the murder of an adult, which is what most polls on the subject tend to ask about.

I'm sure you're wondering what crimes people did think the death penalty should be available for if 70% supported it, but only 51% thought it should be available for murder. As you've probably guessed from me specificing "adult" murder, the largest proportion of people supported the death penalty for the murder of a child (62%), followed by murder, then the rape of a child (39%), terrorism (37%), paedophilia (31%), child abuse (19%), rape (18%), treason (11%) and armed robbery (8%).

Looking at the cross breaks there was an interesting class divide - 81% of respondents in social class DE supported the death penalty compared to 56% of respondents in social classes AB. Respondents under the age of 25 were also more likely to support the death penalty and much more likely to support it for sexual crimes - 37% of under 25s thought the death penalty should be available for rape, compared to only about 12% of over 45s.