NCJ Number
74965
Journal
Crime and Delinquency Volume: 26 Issue: 4 Dated: (October 1980) Pages: complete issue
Editor(s)
S Dike
Date Published
1980
Length
206 pages
Annotation
This collection of articles about the death penalty in America focuses on the arbitrariness of its imposition, its failure as a deterrent to serious crimes, the mental and phyical deterioration of prisoners confined on death row for long periods, and the possible benefits to society of the death penalty.
Abstract
Two articles describe the post-Furman State laws for imposing the death penalty and a proposed Federal law patterned on the State laws as vague, ambiguous, and tending to result in arbitrary and discriminatory sentencing. Empirical evidence from execution and murder statistics in New York State is used to demonstrate that State executions do not have a deterrent effect on the population but rather have a brutalizing effect, reflected in increased numbers of criminal homicides following executions. Econometric studies supporting the deterrence theory of capital punishment are also found to be inadequate because they are based on a faulty microeconomic theory. An article in defense of the death penalty asserts that such punishment is an indicator of society's outrage at particularly heinous crimes and therefore serves a valid retributive function. Another article denounces the practice of excluding jurors who oppose the death penalty from capital juries as violative of the defendant's fair trial rights. The greatest success of the opponents of the death penalty, the successful 1964 Oregon referendum abolishing the death penalty in that State, is described by a participant. Historical accounts of execution in the United States are examined and indicate that executions failed to deter unique population groups -- lawyers and policemen, relatives of those executed, and witnesses to the executions -from committing other murders. Finally, interviews with inmates on death row and observations of the conditions there are used to show that those condemned to death actually die twice -- once before execution and once during execution. For individual articles, see NCJ 74966-74.