In Defense of the Right to Life: Analyzing Factors Affecting Filipino Opinion About Death Penalty
Table 2.
Filipino Attitudes Towards the Death Penalty, Descriptive Statistics
SA
SW
UN
D
SW
D
SD a
42
17
8
9
23
Feeling of Safety with the Death Penalty
I will feel safe from any crime if there is death penalty
37
28
14
10
10
Retribution
A life that is taken is also paid for by a life
20
11
14
14
42
30
30
16
16
7
26
26
26
26
26
40
40
40
40
40
27
27
27
27
27
Punishing a criminal with death penalty would provide some comfort
to the family of the victim who was killed
35
35
35
35
35
The death penalty speeds up justice for the victims
34
34
34
34
34
42
35
11
7
5
Life imprisonment is a sufficient penalty for people who commit
heinous crimes
42
30
9
9
10
It is more important that a person who commits heinous crime
should suffer life in prison rather than be punished by death
penalty
41
28
12
10
9
The possibility that a person who committed a heinous crimes could
still change his/her life and be a good citizen is a good reason not
to restore the death penalty
40
29
15
9
6
If a person who committed a heinous crime can pay, his sentence
should be reduced to imprisonment and he should be allowed to
pay damages to the victim or family of victims instead of suffering
the death penalty
17
22
16
18
26
The death penalty should be re-instated for peoples who were
proven by the courts to have really committed heinous crimes
Most people in prison are actually guilty of committing the crimes
they are in jail for
Wrongful Death Penalty Sentencing b
If a court wrongfully sentences a person to death, and was
executed, the wrongful execution by the court can no longer be
corrected
The death penalty can only be imposed if the courts can show with
certainty that they will not wrongfully sentence an innocent person
Justice Has Been Served b
The death penalty repairs the harm done by a criminal to his/her
victim
Preference for alternatives to the Death Penalty
If the crime did not result in killing a person, the person who
committed the crime may be punished by a prolonged prison
sentence instead of the death penalty
a
SA = strongly agree, SWA = somewhat agree, UND = undecided, SWD = somewhat disagree, SD
= strongly disagree
b
The table presents the results of the original responses before reverse coding was done to
compute the mean scores.
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