The evolution of the death penalty

Abstract

Death is the ultimate penal sanction, which has made it controversial worldwide. Consequently, social scientists have long gravitated to it as a subject for policy-relevant, empirical research. In most nations, however, moral concerns have since World War II led to the death penalty's abolition as cruel and inhuman. Much of the social science research agenda on the death penalty is centered in the United States, a country that permits the federal government and state governments to use death as a punishment for homicide. Scholars such as Franklin Zimring designed the agenda to speak to issues thought to be important in the ongoing campaign against capital punishment.

Thesis

Does the American public support the death penalty? Social scientists have repeatedly documented strong support for capital punishment, which is highly correlated with retributive attitudes.

History of death penalty law

Short annals of the death punishment in the U.S. since 1930, when death punishment statistics started to be assembled on a normal basis. These annals focus death punishment statistics and the legal annals of the death punishment and are founded mainly on the yearly capital penalty bulletins of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice. For farther data, glimpse the Death Penalty Information Center's History of the Death Penalty. (Sarat pp. 353)

From 1930, the first year for which statistics are gladly accessible from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, to 1967, 3,859 individuals were performed under municipal (that is, nonmilitary) jurisdiction in the United States. During this time span of early half a 100 years, over half (54%) of those performed were very dark, 45 per hundred were white, and the remaining one per hundred were constituents of other racial assemblies -- American Indians (a total of 19 performed from 1930-1967), Filipino (13), Chinese (8), and Japanese (2). The huge most of those performed were men; 32 women were performed from 1930 to 1967. (Sarat pp. 19)

Three out of five executions throughout that time span took location in the south U.S. The state of Georgia had the largest number of executions throughout the time span, totaling 366 more than nine per hundred of the nationwide total. Texas pursued with 297 executions; New York with 329; California with 292; and North Caroline with 263. Most executions 3,334 of 3,859 were for the misdeed of murder; 455 prisoners (12%) ninety per hundred of them very dark were performed for rape; 70 prisoners were performed for other offenses. (Mead pp. 577)

During the identical time span, the U.S. Army (including the Air Force) performed 160 individuals, encompassing 106 executions for killing (including 21 engaging rape), 53 for rape, and one for desertion. (The execution for desertion was the subject of the 1974 video "The Execution of Private Slovik.") The U.S. Navy has performed no one since 1849. (Lempert pp. 1177)

Federal capital offenses have changed over time. In colonial America, people could have been executed for any felony, including adultery, blasphemy, perjury, sodomy, and witchcraft. The Constitution makes no reference to capital ...