NCJ Number
215048
Journal
Punishment & Society Volume: 8 Issue: 3 Dated: July 2006 Pages: 365-383
Date Published
July 2006
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This essay identifies limitations of contemporary arguments for the abolition of capital punishment in the United States.
Abstract
The essay first outlines the arguments for abolishing the death penalty that are offered by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as those given by Hugo Bedau and Austin Sarat. Points made in these arguments for death-penalty abolition are its devaluation of human life, elimination of the possibility for redemption from even extreme depravity, race and class bias in the dispensing of the death penalty, its fundamental violation of human rights, a democracy's obligation to use the least restrictive means to achieve a societal goal, and the state's use of violence/killing to supposedly reduce what it is practicing. This essay argues that all of these arguments fail to address two factors that underlie the persistence of the death penalty in America; i.e., that the death penalty is but one part of a broader concept of state sovereignty in America and that the state has ultimate sovereignty over how its citizens will be treated. This essay views the persistence of the policy and practice of capital punishment and the majority's support for it as an expression of anxiety about safety and danger that overpowers any commitment to the value of human life, rehabilitation, or democratic rights. The death penalty is the extreme expression of this anxiety. Those who focus on arguments specifically directed against state policy action relative to the death penalty have ignored the central issue, which is the collective anxiety about our vulnerability and how best to control and/or eliminate those who would do us harm. This priority supersedes other priorities for the American state and the majority of the American public. 14 references