evidence: Two national polls have found that support for capital punishment in the United States remains near half-century lows despite record-high perception that local crime has increased. The 2022 Crime Survey by Gallup, administered between October 3–20, 2022 against the backdrop of the Parkland school shooting trial, reported support for capital punishment held steady at 55%, one percentage point above the 50-year low of 54% in 2021. Gallup has measured support for capital punishment at between 54%-56% for each of the past six years. 42% of respondents told Gallup they oppose the death penalty, one percentage-point below 2021’s 50-year high. Support for capital punishment, which historically had tracked Americans’ fear of crime, did not materially rise despite the largest increase in fifty years in the number of U.S. adults who report that crime is up in the area in which they live. The spike in perceived crime was fueled primarily by a surge in fear among those identifying as Republicans, whose perception that local crime is rising increased from 38% in the final year of the Trump presidency to 73% at the approach of Biden midterm elections. Nationally, 56% of Americans told Gallup that local crime was up.