The Top Ten Death Penalty Myths: The Politics of Crime Control

by Gerber, Rudolph J.

• ISBN13: 9780275997809
• ISBN10: 0275997804
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-11-30
• Publisher: Greenwood Pub Group

Summary

The death penalty remains one of the most controversial issues in the United States. Its proponents claim many things in their defense of its continued application. For example, they claim that it deters crime, that death by lethal injection is painless and humane, that it is racially neutral, and that it provides "closure" to families of the victims. In this comprehensive review of the major death penalty issues, the authors systematically dismantle each one of these myths about capital punishment in a hard-hitting critique of how our social, political, and community leaders have used fear and myth (symbolic politics) to misrepresent the death penalty as a public policy issue. They successfully demonstrate how our political and community leaders have used myth and emotional appeals to misrepresent the facts about capital executions. Successive chapters address the following topics: the notion of community bonding, the expectation of effective crime fighting, the desire for equal justice, deterrence, the hope for fidelity to the Constitution, the claim of error-free justice, closure, retribution, cost-effectiveness, and the messianic desires of some politicians. In each of these areas the authors quote from death penalty advocates making these claims and then proceed to analyze and ultimately dismember the claimed advantages of the death penalty.

Author Biography

John M. Johnson is Professor of Justice Studies at the School of Justice and Social Inquiry, Arizona State University.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction	p. xv
Death Penalty History and the Myth of Community Bonding	p. 1
The Myth of the Rule of Law in Capital Cases	p. 22
The Myth of Equal Justice	p. 43
The Myth of Deterrence	p. 62
The Myth of Fidelity to the Constitution	p. 87
The Myth of Humane Execution	p. 107
The Myth of Closure	p. 124
The Myth of Retribution	p. 139
The Myth of Effective Crime Control	p. 165
The Myth of the Dedicated Public Servant	p. 182
Conclusion	p. 209
Selected Bibliography	p. 227
Index	p. 231
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.