INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WOWO): The death penalty is in a long, slow decline in Indiana and nationally, according to opinion polls and how often it’s being used.

Robert Dunham with the Death Penalty Information Center says surveys show support for the death sentence is at a 40-year low, and last year saw the lowest number of executions in two decades. Dunham says people are seeing practical problems with putting people to death, including the costs and botched executions. There also has been what he calls “an innocence revolution” – a wave of death-row inmates later proven not guilty.

“DNA has shown people have gone to death row who clearly didn’t commit the offense. Innocent people are being convicted. There are false confessions; there are fabricated confessions. That’s causing people concern.”

Death penalty supporters argue harsh justice is a deterrent to crime. In Indiana, more than a dozen people are on death row. The last execution was in 2009, when convicted murderer Matthew Wrinkles died by lethal injection.

.