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In Race, Class, and the Death Penalty, Howard W. Allen and Jerome M. Clubb examine historical trends in the use of capital punishment in the United States. Employing empirical data, the authors explore how frequently the death penalty has been used and how its frequency of use has changed, where the death penalty was used most often, the offenses charged, and the characteristics of the executed. Not surprisingly, their findings indicate that minority groups—particularly African Americans and those of lower social and economic status in general—have been executed in disproportionate numbers. The authors conclude that while the use of the death penalty has progressively declined, and the range of capital offenses has narrowed, disparities in the use of capital punishment between social groups and regions that appeared in the colonial period have persisted into the twenty-first century.
The 34 chapters in this book are largely composed of interviews—with the men on death row, with individuals fighting the death penalty, and with the families of the condemned. Several chapters also cover such topics as the execution of juveniles, mentally retarded individuals and Vietnam veterans, ineffective legal counsel and racist criminal justice systems, botched executions, and executions carried out despite the contrary wishes of prosecutors and victims’ families.
Based on T.M. Owen's history of Alabama and dictionary of Alabama biography published in 1921.
This book brings together the most recent advances in theory and research on the relationship between social inequality and the control of criminal behavior, exploring the ways in which social class, race, gender, and age shape societal and organizational responses to crime.
In fascinating detail, Ivan Solotaroff introduces us to the men who carry out executions. Although the emphasis is on the personal lives of these men and of those they have to put to death, The Last Face You'll Ever See also addresses some of the deeper issues of the death penalty and connects the veiled, elusive figure of the executioner to the vast majority of Americans who, since 1977, have claimed to support executions. Why do we do it? Or, more exactly, why do we want to? The Last Face You'll Ever See is not about the polarizing issues of the death penalty -- it is a firsthand report about the culture of executions: the executioners, the death-row inmates, and everyone involved in the act. An engrossing, unsettling, and provocative book, this work will forever affect anyone who reads it.
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