A View From the Inside: The Role of Redemption, Deterrence, and Masculinity on Inmate Support for the Death Penalty

2003 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey Steele ◽  
Norma Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Child Abuse ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Inverse Relationship ◽  
Social Characteristics ◽  
Child Molestation ◽  
Crime Family ◽  
Serial Killing

Seeking to redress the lack of inmate-centered research, the authors examine inmate attitudes towards capital punishment to determine whether individual and social characteristics predict death penalty support for a sample of 309 midwestern inmates. The authors’ results indicate that while a slight majority of inmates opposed capital punishment (53%), opposition softened considerably for crimes such as serial killing, child molestation, and child abuse. Factors that significantly predicted inmate death penalty support included the belief that capital punishment deters violent crime, family members’ capital punishment advocacy, and a high score on the Alpha scale (a measure assessing inmate identification with violent and aggressive aspects of hegemonic masculinity). In addition, a significant inverse relationship emerged between the belief that a person can be rehabilitated and death penalty support. The findings strongly suggest that inmate death penalty opinions are complex and nuanced and can offer considerable insights regarding the efficacy of current social control practices.

Capital Punishment

2018 ◽  
pp. 153-186
Author(s):  
Sandra Fredman
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Original Intent ◽  
Living Tree ◽  
Legislative Power ◽  
Fair Procedure ◽  
The Cross

This chapter applies the cross-cutting themes in Chapters 1–5 to the highly contested issue of the death penalty. It begins by considering the differences in constitutional texts, and particularly the ambiguity as to whether the death penalty is permitted. This requires judges to apply their interpretive theories. Original intent, natural meaning, and living tree approaches have all been relied on to achieve a mosaic of different and vehemently contested approaches. The chapter then considers how courts in different jurisdictions have addressed three main issues: whether a fair procedure can be found which justifies the death penalty; whether there are good penological justifications; and the role of substantive values, such as human dignity. The chapter highlights the ways in which courts approach the demarcation between judicial and legislative power; their use of comparative materials; and the increasing interconnectedness of the approach of different jurisdictions to the death penalty.

The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of the Death Penalty in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 299-315
Author(s):  
Carol S. Steiker ◽  
Jordan M. Steiker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
History Of Race ◽  
Western Democracies

This review addresses four key issues in the modern (post-1976) era of capital punishment in the United States. First, why has the United States retained the death penalty when all its peer countries (all other developed Western democracies) have abolished it? Second, how should we understand the role of race in shaping the distinctive path of capital punishment in the United States, given our country's history of race-based slavery and slavery's intractable legacy of discrimination? Third, what is the significance of the sudden and profound withering of the practice of capital punishment in the past two decades? And, finally, what would abolition of the death penalty in the United States (should it ever occur) mean for the larger criminal justice system?

Journalists as agents and language as an instrument of social control: A child protection case study

2001 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 26-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Goddard ◽  
Bernadette Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Child Abuse ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Court Case ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

In recent years there has been considerable analysis of how the media create images of crime. The relationship between child abuse and the media has also been subject to greater scrutiny. This article examines the role of one newspaper in a child protection case. The part played by the newspaper in the court case led to an examination of the language used by the media in their representations of children. The researchers found that a child may be objectified in language even when the child’s gender is previously identified. The ‘gender slippage’ may in extreme cases lead to the ‘textual abuse’ of children, where child abuse is rewritten to lessen the impact on the reader. The authors conclude that the actions of journalists and the language they use require more critical analysis.

Suspended Execution beyond China’s Borders

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Tobias Smith ◽  
Daniel Pascoe
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
First Century ◽  
Twenty First Century

Abstract Although China remains the world’s most prolific death-penalty jurisdiction, it has also reportedly reduced executions in the twenty-first century. China achieved this reduction in part through the use of a nominal capital sentence called “suspended execution.” The success of suspended execution as a diversionary tool has produced calls for its introduction elsewhere. However, there has been no empirical research on suspended execution outside China. This article fills this gap by identifying neighbouring countries where suspended-execution proposals have been considered, determining why these countries considered it, and examining how proposals were structured. We identify four Asian jurisdictions—Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, and Indonesia. We find that all of these countries looked to China for inspiration; each did so independently and for reasons unrelated to China’s death-penalty reforms. Our findings provide insights about capital punishment in Asia, the appeal of suspended execution, and the role of China in regional penal practice.

Capital Punishment in the Post-Civil War Years

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-62
Author(s):  
David M. Doyle ◽  
Liam O’Callaghan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Death Sentences

This chapter examines the application of the death penalty in the first ten years of the Free State. Historians to date have argued that the relatively high number of civilian executions in the early post-independence years was symptomatic of Cumann nGaedheal’s broader anxieties with issues of law and order. This chapter revises that assessment and argues that those convicted of murder in the civilian courts in these years were no more likely to have their sentence carried out than those convicted in subsequent eras. By closely examining the decision-making process leading to the execution or commutation of death sentences, particularly the role of judges and government officials, this chapter argues that the death penalty, as imposed by the ordinary courts, was an example of the government’s efforts to restore peacetime civilian norms to the criminal justice system and was not used to any political end.

Escaping the Guillotine: The Gap between the Crimes Punishable by Death and the Effective Death Sentences (France, 20th Century)

2019 ◽  
Vol 80 ◽  
pp. 265-281
Author(s):  
Nicolas Picard
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Place Of Death ◽  
The People ◽  
Death Sentences ◽  
Statistical Report ◽  
Mitigating Circumstances

A statistical report of 1906 evaluated the place of death sentences in the judicial system, with the main purpose of supporting the bill of abolition of the death penalty (finally rejected). This report showed the negligible role of the capital punishment in the penal repression – as if the guillotine had already fallen into abeyance. According to the Penal Code of 1810, aggravated murders (premeditated murders, murders accompanied by another crime, murders of a public officer), parricides, poisonings, arsons of houses, as well as complicity in and attempt of such crimes, were all punishable by the guillotine. However, a large implementation of the principle of mitigating circumstances allowed to avoid the enforcement of death penalty. Moreover, two thirds of the people sentenced to death were pardoned, often with the support of the juries. The substitute penalty was a perpetual imprisonment, but this “perpetuity” became shorter and shorter after 1945.

scholarly journals Support for the Death Penalty Reinstatement as a Protest Attitude: The Role of Political Trust

2020 ◽  
pp. 105756772096315
Author(s):  
Ridvan Peshkopia ◽  
Adam Trahan
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Cell Phone ◽  
Political Trust ◽  
Random Digit Dialing ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Random Digit ◽  
War On Crime ◽  
A Cell

We argue that support for the reinstatement of capital punishment might reflect protest against an untrustworthy judicial system, framing this as a protest attitude. We test our argument with data from a probability sample of 2,366 respondents in Albania collected in 2015 via a cell phone random digit dialing technique. We found that respondents’ support for the reinstatement of the death penalty is associated with lack of trust in the country’s judiciary but not necessarily respondents prioritizing the war on crime. Also, we found that skepticism toward European Union (EU) membership conditionality as a drive for the country’s democratization is a good predictor of support for the reinstatement of the death penalty, but there is no evidence that respondents related their support for the country’s EU membership with support for capital punishment.

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