NCJ Number
183141
Date Published
2000
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This paper examines the historical and current contexts of capital punishment in the United States and English-speaking West Indies.
Abstract
The paper begins by identifying similarities in death penalty history and policy for the United States and West Indies, including the receipt of the British death penalty jurisprudence and practice as former colonies of Great Britain, long histories of executions, discrimination against the poor and disadvantaged ethnic groups in administering the death penalty, and recent moratoria on executions because of process issues. Some important differences in the capital punishment histories of the United States and West Indies are also noted. Capital punishment as a means of controlling slave labor was probably more cruel in the West Indies, but capital punishment as a means of controlling "free" labor after the abolition of slavery was probably more cruel in the United States. In the United States and the West Indies, delays have resulted from moratoria and the appellate process in both nations. The result is the "death row phenomenon," in which relatively large populations of the condemned continue to accumulate. The sociopolitical environments of the United States and the West Indies are also similar. When crime is highly politicized, elected officials put extra pressure on the state for executions to show the electorate and the wider community that "tough-on-crime" campaign promises are being kept. Although the United States has accelerated executions since ending its moratorium in 1977 and there has been intense pressure in Trinidad for more hangings, few scholars of death penalty policy believe the death rows of the United States and West Indies will be emptied any time soon. 54 references