States with larger proportions of African Americans are more likely to have the death penalty on the books than states with smaller black populations, according to a new study. The results also showed that higher levels of economic inequality within a state -- bigger gaps between the rich and poor -- made it more likely that states would have the death penalty. But surprisingly, the states with the most violent crime and the most murders were no more likely than other states to have instituted capital punishment.

The findings show that political and social factors such as race and economic inequality play an important role in determining whether a state is likely to legalize the death penalty, said David Jacobs,professor of sociology at Ohio State University and co-author of the study. "Our results show how important the politics of racial division and the racial foundations of punishment continue to be in the United States," Jacobs said. "The results fit with other research showing that in areas where the percentage of minorities is higher, crime control efforts are enhanced in part because whites become more fearful as minority populations become larger." The authors conclude that "The link between race and capital punishment remains strong, even though the effects of race on punishmentprobably are less conspicuous now than they were in the past."

Jacobs conducted the study with Jason Carmichael, a doctoral student in sociology at Ohio State. Their results were published in the current issue of the American Sociological Review.

While many studies have examined individual factors such as race that determine if individuals are more likely to receive the death sentences, Jacobs said no previous studies have examined multiple states to see if factors such as race, economic inequality or politics influence whether capital punishment will be legal in these jurisdictions. The researchers examined data from all 50 states in 1970, 1980 and 1990 and linked that data to whether the states had capital punishment in 1971, 1981 and 1991.

The most important finding, Jacobs said, was the connection between the proportion of blacks living in each state and the likelihood the state had the death penalty. The study didn't find any link between the size of Hispanic populations in the states and legalization of capital punishment. That may have been because Hispanics are concentrated in fewer states than are blacks, Jacobs said. Also the large growth of the Hispanic populations during the 1990s may mean that these effects will show in 2000 and beyond.

Political factors also played a role in the presence of a legal death penalty. States with higher proportions of conservative citizens were more likely to have the death penalty, as were states in which the Republican party held more than 60 % of the seats in the legislature.

While the idea that racial and economic divisions, as well as political factors, affect the legality of capital punishment makes sense, Jacobs said it was "surprising that our results offer no support for one plausible hypothesis -- that states with the most violent crimes or murders will be more likely to retain the death penalty."

In order to further test their results, Jacobs and Carmichael did another related analysis. In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal and state capital punishment laws -- resulting in a moratorium on use of the death penalty. In 1976, the Supreme Court reversed and decided to let states use the death penalty if they made significant alterations to their death-penalty statutes.

The researchers examined how long it took after the 1976 decision for states to revise their laws to conform to the Supreme Court's altered requirements. Their results in this portion of the study nearly duplicated the other findings. For example, states with higher proportions of African American citizens took a shorter period of time to make the death penalty legal again than did states with fewer black citizens. States with more economic inequality also took a shorter period of time to legalize capital punishment again. Similar results were found regarding the proportion of conservatives in the state and the strength of the Republican party.

"We found that similar hypotheses predict both the legality of the death penalty and the time to compliance with the Supreme Court's demands for significant revisions to state death-penalty statutes," Jacobs said.

"These similarities in results provide additional reasons to think that political decisions about the legality of capital punishment respond to racial and economic factors, conservative values, and the political strength of the law-and-order Republican party."