ABOUT THE PROJECT:
Owing to the rarest of the rare doctrine for capital punishment in Indian legislation, it seems prerogative to take into consideration the views and opinions of the people pertaining to capital punishment and its practice in any form. The research project is first of its kind where we collected 25210 responses from general population from almost all states and union territories of India. An anonymous self-administered survey was formulated comprising of 15 items and disseminated via online and offline method. The purpose of this study to assess public attitude towards capital punishment, the type of crime and circumstances for which death penalty is favored, the level of support among various subpopulation and understanding the reasons, socio- psychological and attitudinal correlates of death penalty in India.
FACULTY MEMBERS INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT:
- Professor (Dr.) Sanjeev P. Sahni, Founder & Principal Director, JIBS
- Ms. Garima Jain, Assistant Director (Research), JIBS
FUNDS RECEIVED/ SANCTIONED: Rs. 5,00,000/-
SOURCE OF FUNDING: JGU Research Grant Committee
DURATION OF THE PROJECT: 1 year 2 months
OUTPUT OF THE RESEARCH:
The data for this exploratory study is collected through random and convenience sample, using a combination of online and offline methods and disseminated to the social contacts of the authors. An anonymous self- administered survey was formulated comprising of many items and administered on 25,210 respondents covering almost all states and territories in India.
According to the findings of the empirical research, it has been observed that an overwhelming 79% of the respondents’ favor legalizing capital punishment for specific crimes. Logistic regression and association rule analysis revealed that generally people who supported death penalty tend to be females, elderly, middle and upper class economic status, businessmen & self-employed. The support of death penalty with respect to demographic correlates for various crimes ranging from treason, murder, rape, terrorist attack, genocide, dowry death, human trafficking, drug trafficking and offences against children. The results further indicated that 20% of the total sample favor abolishing death penalty, owing to various factors like violation of right to life, un-economical, because of its barbaric, arbitrary & irretrievable nature. Explanation of these findings and its implication on legislative and judicial decision makers are also studied.
DEVELOPMENTS RELATED TO THE PROJECT:
- A paper proposal is submitted for review on ‘Ethical consideration on death penalty’ to Societas Ethica ’s 53rd Annual Conference, Bad Boll, Stuttgart, Germany (18th- 21st August 2016).
- Research papers related to the findings of Internet Infidelity were presented in UN Congress, Stockholm, Spain, Istanbul and Pretoria.
- Working towards publishing the findings of the project with leading journal publication house.
- The book based on the death penalty survey titled “The Death Penalty : Perspectives from India and Beyond" conducted by JIBS has been published by Springer Nature in the year 2020.