DOJ Report on Capital Punishment 2002

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released the report Capital Punishment 2002. The report "presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2002, and of persons executed in 2002. Preliminary data on executions by States during 2003 are included, and the report summarizes the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during 2002. Numerical tables present data on offenders' sex, race, Hispanic origin, education, marital status, age at time of arrest for capital offense, legal status at time of capital offense, methods of execution, trends, and time between imposition of death sentence and execution. Historical tables present executions since 1930 and sentencing since 1973." The 2002 report shows that U.S. executions have increased for the first time in 3 years.