Kayla Turley 2A

Final Project:
The subject that I chose to do my final project on was capital punishment. The full definition of
capital punishment is the legally authorized killing of someone as punishment for a crime, or the death
penalty. The death penalty is important because of amendment eight. Is the death penalty a cruel and
unusual punishment? What do Americans in Utah think? That is why I did this particular poll.
Before I started my project I made a hypothesis to all five questions. The first question I
hypothesized was that everyone we asked would know what capital punishment was. The second question
I hypothesized that most people would say that they believed capital punishment did defer others from
committing murders. On the third question I hypothesized that most people would say that capital
punishment was not a fair punishment. After those three questions we got to our biased questions. It was
really hard to make a legitimate hypothesis on these but I did anyway. On the fourth question I believed
that if someone had murdered their whole family most people would say that they supported capital
punishment. Lastly on the fifth question I hypothesized that if the person being asked had brutally
murdered many people and was on death row that they would not support capital punishment.
The respondents to this poll were very different all around. We chose 30 people, some at random
and some family and friends. Five-teen were women over the age of eight-teen and five-teen were males
over the age of eight-teen. We had a large range of ages also, from teenage years up people in their late
seventies. I chose this group of people because they were easy to come by. I asked people in the
attendance office, the counselors, the secretaries, and parents that came in to check their children out.
The part of the survey that I conducted was done completely in a face-to-face setting. I think that
this may have made our results different than if the survey was to be conducted over the phone. The
people were able to see facial expressions when read the questions. This could have made them answer
differently than they would have over the phone. I think another thing that could have made the results
biased would be that most of the male answers were family members and family friends.
The list of questions that we asked our participants goes in order as follows:
Neutral Questions:
1. Do you know what capital punishment is?
2. Do you think Capital Punishment defects others from committing murders?
3. Do you think Capital Punishment is ever a fair punishment?
Biased Questions:
4. If someone has murdered your whole family would you support Capital
Punishment?
5. If you had brutally murdered many people and you were on death row, would you
support Capital Punishment

Data Representation:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Do you know what capital punishment is?

Do you think Capital Punishment defects others from committing murders?
Do you think Capital Punishment is ever a fair punishment?
If someone has murdered your whole family would you support Capital
Punishment?
5. If you had brutally murdered many people and you were on death row, would you
support Capital Punishment?
Females:
Names:
Karen
Maxine
Shreya
Diane
Naomi
Teri
Leasa
Carol
Alena
Marta
Marilyn
Claudia
Nichole
Ashlyn
Jo

Age:
54
81
31
53
70
58
52
33
38
47
55
60
39
18
56
Total No:
Yes:

Quesiton 1:
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
1
14

Question 2:
Yes
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
9
6

Question 3:
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
2
13

Question 4:
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
2
13

Question 5:
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
1
14

Males:
Name:
Ben T.
Gill
Clint
Ralph
Greg
Jack
Dough
Brett
Ben F.
Joe
Nikko
Steve
Ima
Josh
Usiate

Age:
26
58
60
59
24
52
76
40
34
29
42
26
25
24
22
Total: No
Yes

Question 1:
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
0
15

Quesiton 2:
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
No
Yes
10
5

Question 3:
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
3
12

Question 4:
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
4
11

Question 5:
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
7
8

Final Summary:
This project was actually pretty fun. I thought that this project was going to be a piece of cake that I
could get done in a day or two. When I actually started the project I realized it was going to be a lot harder
than I had originally thought, which made me really thankful that I had started the project so early on. I
started the project the day after we got it. Being a junior I dont know a lot of people over the age of eightteen that arent my parents. My parents dont go out a lot so they dont have many friends that I could ask.
So I started to go around the school and ask the counselors. When I got in there and started asking I got a
good chunk of female answers so I waited there for parents to come in and check their students out and got
the rest of my female answers that way. I sent the paper home with Faith the next day so that she could find
the last seven male answers. From there the project was generally easy.
I think that it would be fun to do something like this for a living to get myself through college. It
doesnt seem like it would be really hard to call people on the phone and get them to answer five questions. I
think it would be interesting to received results from people because you would get to know how people
think about different subjects on things related to politics. To me that would be interesting because you could
figure out why and know what others thought and why might help me make a better voting decision. I would
not like to do this type of thing for the rest of my life however. I feel like you hear from a lot of stupid, racist,
and annoying people. I dont think I would be good at being patient with them for that long of a period of
time. I would get annoyed and start to hate the job I think. I do, however, think I would enjoy it for a short
period of time.
When I was conducting the poll I found that some people surprised me a lot. In government we
learned about how people of different genders thought differently on subjects, especially those involving
remorse. I was surprised to see the large amount of difference on question five (If you were on death row
would you support capital punishment?) Only one women told me that she would not compared to seven
men. The thing that surprised me the most was that the women started out saying yes, and then she asked me
to repeat the question and changed her answer to a no. I found this fascinating because on the men poll it was
almost fifty, fifty on the answer to question five.
I feel like my own biased did come in to play when I was asking the questions. I am not a great liar
so when someone would tell me an answer I did the best I could to keep a straight face. Some of the answers
that I got that werent a direct answer but a rambling surprised me a ton! I got some racist and sexist
comments about Capital Punishment. The one that I remember the clearest is Would I want that black (the
rude word with the same meaning) gang banger to get his head blown off? Hell yea I would.
Another thing that surprised me about the results that I got was how one of the women answered
question one. When I asked her if she knew what capital punishment was she replied with a no and it startled
me because I didnt understand how anyone could be so uneducated that they didnt know that the United
States had a death penalty. I told her what it was by saying the death penalty. I feel like the answers to her
questions are completely biased. She was from India and has heard of many terrible things about being put to
death for stupid things. I dont think she fully understood what I meant when I said death penalty. She was
completely and totally opposed to every purpose of it. (She was one of the ones that when interviewed
answered every question with a minute ramble about why). I would be interested in seeing if a lot of people
from India react the same way and if so what makes them react that way and if they dont I would be
interested in understanding why she has such a strong feeling against it.