Based at the State University of New York’s Albany campus, the Capital Punishment Research Initiative (CPRI) is dedicated to conducting and supporting empirical and historical studies of the death penalty. CPRI research is conducted by the University’s graduate students and professors, as well as by collaborating researchers from around the country. The center’s current projects include:
- Capital Jury Project II - Research on the decision-making of capital jurors. This research draws on the literature concerning cognitive schema, identification and empathy, the interpersonal dynamics of persuasion in groups, and the interplay of race, gender, and social class. The study builds on recently developed findings of stark differences in the decision-making patterns of black and white jurors from the national Capital Jury Project (CJP).
- Abolitionist Oral History Project - This program involves conducting interviews with a wide variety of American activists in an effort to build an oral history of the mid-20th century and post-Furman movement to end capital punishment in America.
- National Death Penalty Archives - One of the original goals of the CPRI was to establish and maintain a collection of archival materials to document the history of capital punishment and preserve resources for historical scholarship. Through collaboration with the University at Albany Library’s M.E. Grenander Department of Special Collections and Archives, the CPRI has established the National Death Penalty Archives (NDPA).
- Clemency Petitions as a Key to Wrongful Executions - This project involves the acquisition and analysis of clemency petitions and related materials filed in capital cases across America. The Clemency Project intends to acquire an estimated 600-700 such petitions and associated materials, and complete an analysis that uses this material. In essence, these clemency requests can be viewed as a window on the processing of capital cases, and as a source of uniquely detailed information on the nature of faults previously identified in the administration of the death penalty.