Lenient Death Sentencing and the “Cash for Clemency” Debate

This chapter focuses on how social workers are uniquely suited to the essential task of crafting mitigating social histories for capital defendants that can penetrate the fog of misconceptions, disinformation, and demonization/dehumanization endemic to the capital punishment process. Rooted in traditions of antiracism and community education, welfare, and empowerment, whose fundamental aspirations have been to identify and remedy systemic impediments to human welfare and to encourage human mutuality, the 150-year history of American social work places it in natural opposition to capital punishment. Mitigating narratives created by social workers recover defendants’ humanity and empower judicial decision-makers to act mercifully. Decades of social worker participation in capital defense have seen a sharp decline in death sentencing.

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Death sentencing by Zoom: An actor-network theory analysis

Alternative Law Journal ◽

10.1177/1037969x20966147 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1037969X2096614

Author(s):

Milena Heinsch ◽

Tania Sourdin ◽

Caragh Brosnan ◽

Hannah Cootes

Keyword(s):

Network Theory ◽

Video Conferencing ◽

Actor Network Theory ◽

Limited Extent ◽

Theory Analysis ◽

Actor Network ◽

Jury Trials ◽

The World ◽

Death Sentencing

During the COVID-19 pandemic, courts around the world have introduced a range of technologies to cope with social distancing requirements. Jury trials have been largely delayed, although some jurisdictions moved to remote jury approaches and video conferencing was used extensively for bail applications. While videoconferencing has been used to a more limited extent in the area of sentencing, many were appalled by the news that two people were sentenced to death via Zoom. This article uses actor-network theory (ANT) to explore the role of technology in reshaping the experience of those involved in the sentencing of Punithan Genasan in Singapore.

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Transactions in Desire: Media Imaginings of Narcotics and Terrorism in Indonesia

Cultural Studies Review ◽

10.5130/csr.v16i2.1698 ◽

1970 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Jeff Lewis ◽

Belinda Lewis

Keyword(s):

Popular Media ◽

Regional Security ◽

South East Asia ◽

Transnational Politics ◽

Cultural Issues ◽

Global War On Terror ◽

Death Sentencing ◽

Global War ◽

Transnational Engagement ◽

The Relationship

The relationship between Australia (an outpost of Anglo-western culture) and Indonesia (the world's most populous Muslim nation) has always been precarious. Much of the Australian media and political 'mediasphere' have contributed to the destabilisation of this relationship, most particularly as many media professionals reduce complex transcultural and transnational engagement to simple and essentialised cultural dichotomies. This limited vision is evident in the popular media's treatment of two significant politico-cultural issues: regional terrorism and the trade in illicit narcotics. Within a context of the global war on terror and Islamic attacks in Bali, much of the Australian popular media and public have been particularly agitated by the conviction and death sentencing of a group of Australians (the Bali Nine) who had attempted to smuggle heroin out of Indonesia. This article examines the interrelationship between drug trafficking and regional security in South East Asia, most specifically as the issues have been conflated through transnational politics and the Australian media. The article concludes that these issues have a common trajectory within the momentum of globalisation and the cultural imaginaries created through the modern mediasphere.

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