Facing the Death Penalty: Essays on a Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Facing the Death Penalty: Essays on a Cruel and Unusual Punishment
ISBN-10
0877227217
ISBN-13
9780877227212
Category
Social Science
Pages
236
Language
English
Published
1989
Publisher
Temple University Press
Author
Michael Radelet

Description

"These essays...show us the human and inhuman realities of capital punishment through the eyes of the condemned and those who work with them. By focusing on those awaiting death, they present the awful truth behind the statistics in concrete, personal terms." --William J. Bowers, author of Legal Homicide Between 1930 and 1967, there were 3,859 executions carried out under state and civil authority in the United States. Since the ten-year moratorium on capital punishment ended in 1977, more than one hundred prisoners have been executed. There are more than two thousand men and women now living on death row awaiting their executions. Facing the Death Penalty offers an in-depth examination of what life under a sentence of death is like for condemned inmates and their families, how and why various professionals assist them in their struggle for life, and what these personal experiences with capital punishment tell us about the wisdom of this penal policy. The contributors include historians, attorneys, sociologists, anthropologists, criminologists, a minister, a philosopher, and three prisoners. One of the prisoner-contributors is Willie Jasper Darden, Jr., whose case and recent execution after fourteen years on death row drew international attention. The inter-disciplinary perspectives offered in this book will not solve the death penalty debate, but they offer important and unique insights on the full effects of American capital punishment provisions. While the book does not set out to generate sympathy for those convicted of horrible crimes, taken together, the essays build a case for abolition of the death penalty. "This work stands with the best of what's been written. It represents the best of those who have seen the worst." --Colman McCarthy, The Washington Post Book World

Get the book

Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Search the book
eBay.com
eBay.com
Search the book

Other editions

Similar books

  • In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row Families
    In the Shadow of Death: Restorative Justice and Death Row Families
    By Elizabeth Beck, Sarah Britto, Arlene Andrews

    Divorced and with a child, she met another man, Dean, who she married, and together they also had a son, Alfred. Dean was an alcoholic who had a head injury that left him prone to irritability and violent outbursts. He beat Lynn badly.

  • Hidden Victims: The Effects of the Death Penalty on Families of the Accused
    Hidden Victims: The Effects of the Death Penalty on Families of the Accused
    By Susan F. Sharp

    Erez , Edna , and L. Roeger . “ The Effect Victim Impact Statements Have on Sentencing Patterns and ... Feagin , Joe R. , Anthony M. Orum , and Gideon Sjoberg . A Case for the Case Study Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina ...

  • The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective
    The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective
    By Carolyn Hoyle, Roger Hood CBE QC

    And Julian Knowles, 'CapitalPunishment inthe CommonwealthCaribbean: Colonial Inheritance orColonialRemedy?'in WilliamA.Schabas and PeterHodgkinson (eds.), Capital Punishment.Strategiesfor Abolition(2004), pp.282–308.

  • Living on Death Row: The Psychology of Waiting to Die
    Living on Death Row: The Psychology of Waiting to Die
    By James R. Acker, Hans Toch, Vincent Martin Bonventre

    This book represents an urgent call to action for researchers, policymakers, and all those who seek criminal justice reform.

  • Deterrence and the Death Penalty
    Deterrence and the Death Penalty
    By Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council, Committee on Law and Justice

    Against this backdrop, the National Research Council report Deterrence and the Death Penalty assesses whether the available evidence provides a scientific basis for answering questions of if and how the death penalty affects homicide rates.

  • The Barbaric Punishment: Abolishing the Death Penalty
    The Barbaric Punishment: Abolishing the Death Penalty
    By Hans Göran Franck

    In this volume, Swedish human rights activist and political figure, Hans Göran Franck, examines the administration of the death penalty from a historical perspective.

  • Peculiar Institution
    Peculiar Institution
    By David Garland

    Evans, Rituals ofRetribution, 225ff. ... Punishment and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 122; Diez-Ripolles, Derecho; Evans, Rituals ofRetribution, 47–48. ... Ibid., 40; John Beattie, Crime and the Courts in ...

  • Should We Have Capital Punishment?
    Should We Have Capital Punishment?
    By JoAnn Bren Guernsey

    Discusses capital punishment, analyzing how it affects those condemned to die, those who have been victimized, our society, and the enforcers.

  • California P.I.: One woman's fight to save prisoners from death row
    California P.I.: One woman's fight to save prisoners from death row
    By Rachel Sommerville

    All of them are potentially facing the death penalty in California. Australian-born Rachel Sommerville is a private investigator whose job is to help lawyers convince a jury or appeal court to let these men live.

  • Right Here, Right Now: Life Stories from America's Death Row
    Right Here, Right Now: Life Stories from America's Death Row
    By Lynden Harris

    You, me, all of us, right here, right now, this minute, that's love.” Right Here, Right Now collects the powerful, first-person stories of dozens of men on death rows across the country.