Public Opinion Poll, September 2014
For the first time since SACP has been testing the public opinion in Serbia, an absolute majority of respondents (54%) are in favour of the death penalty. This is undoubtedly due to a moral panic which affected the country after a brutal rape and murder of a 17 year old girl in Vojvodina in August. A Facebook profile “100,000 people who want a death penalty for the murderer of Tijana Juric” had more than 120,000 likes in 17 October 2014. In contrast, profile “Serbia against capital punishment” had only 1,339 likes.
This year’s results:
![](/portals/0/Galerija/Anketa%202014%20grafikoni/all.jpg)
When the undecided are excluded, 70% of respondents were for the death penalty and only 30% against it:
![](/portals/0/Galerija/Anketa%202014%20grafikoni/for.against.jpg)
As explained above, support for the death penalty this year is higher than ever before:
![](/portals/0/Galerija/Anketa%202014%20grafikoni/all%20resp.jpg)
![](/portals/0/Galerija/Anketa%202014%20grafikoni/for%20%20w%20o.jpg)
As usual, women are against the death penalty more often than meni:
![](/portals/0/Galerija/Anketa%202014%20grafikoni/by%20gender.jpg)
Younger respondents are more often against the death penalty than the older ones:
![](/portals/0/Galerija/Anketa%202014%20grafikoni/by%20age.jpg)
Voters for the political parties of the left are against capital punishment more often than those who vote for the right:
![](/portals/0/Galerija/Anketa%202014%20grafikoni/by%20political.jpg)
This year, there was no difference in attitudes between urban and rudal populations:
![](/portals/0/Galerija/city.other.jpg)
Regionally, the highest percentage of those opposing capital punihsment live in Belgrade. Support for capital punishment in Vojvodina is now higher than ever before, because the murder which sparked off the moral panic in August took place in that region:
![](/portals/0/Galerija/Anketa%202014%20grafikoni/by%20region.jpg)
Educational level of respodnents strongly affects their attitude to the death penalty. Those with higher education are more often against the death penalty:
![](/portals/0/Galerija/Anketa%202014%20grafikoni/by%20education.jpg)
The poll („face-to-face“ survey of public opinion – omnibus) was administered by Ipsos Strategic arketing, using the same methodology as in the past six years, on a nationally representative sample (three-stage random representative stratified sample), from 19 to 25 September 2014. The number of respondents in the realized sample was 1,000. The integral report is available here.