• A majority of US adults believe that some crimes, for which offenders are currently incarcerated, do not demand time behind bars.Another striking result from that poll found a lack of public confidence in the effectiveness of prison at altering behavior: "More than half (54%) do not think that serving time in prison or jail reduces the likelihood that a person will commit more crime in the future, while about two-fifths (38%) hold the opposite view."
• Eight in ten (77%) adults believe the most appropriate sentence for nonviolent, nonserious offenders* is supervised probation, restitution, community service, and/or rehabilitative services; if an offender fails in these alternatives, then prison or jail may be appropriate.
• Over three-quarters (77%) believe alternatives to incarceration do not decrease public safety.
• More than half (55%) believe alternatives to prison or jail decrease costs to state and local governments.
• US adults more often think alternatives to incarceration are more effective than prison or jail time at reducing recidivism (45% vs. 38%).
• Respondents cited a variety of reasons they believe justify sending fewer people to prison or jail, including expense, overcrowding (danger to guards, danger to inmates), the ability of proven alternatives to reduce crime, and the fairness of the punishment relative to the crime.
Meanwhile, Steve Hall from the Stand Down Texas Project alerts us to a separate poll by CNN concerning attitudes about the death penalty that suggests a very different public sentiment, though I think the question was framed in a biased way. For starters, before asking the pro or con question, the only example of an executed inmate given to the poll-taker was a serial killer who murdered 8 women in Connecticut, a particularly heinous crime that's not representative of the average death row inmate's case. (In Texas, even accomplices can be convicted of capital murder under the "law of parties."
CNN's poll found 53% of Americans favored the death penalty for murder, while 43% preferred life without parole (the only choice offered besides "not sure"). The findings, though, are extremely suspect regarding their application to real-world policy because the options didn't include the most common sentence in murder cases - incarceration that's LESS than LWOP and frequently leaves the murderer parole-eligible after a certain, minimum sentence, if they can convince the parole board they're no longer a continuing threat.
In 2007, according to TDCJ's annual report (pdf) Texas state prisons received 1,078 offenders convicted of charges of homicide (p. 18). Only 37 of them received sentences of LWOP, while just 14 went to death row. So that's a pretty biased way to frame the question if the goal is to present realistic policy alternatives.
RELATED: Poll: Tough on crime messages don't resonate with critical swing voters.