This book offers a new perspective on the death penalty in the US, examining capital punishment as state crime or state-produced harm. It addresses the death penalty, showing how the state not only authorizes a system and a practice that tortures human beings, but is also aware of its deep flaws and chooses not to address them.
Building on the vast literature on state crime together with case examples and interviews with activists seeking to abolish the death penalty, this book offers a new and innovative critique of state punishment in the US. It draws on a range of issues and topics such as arbitrariness, inadequate counsel, racial bias, mental illness, innocence, conditions on death row, the protocols, and the equipment used for executions. It emphasizes the need for abolition of the death penalty and highlights efforts being made to do so, with a focus on successful elements of abolition campaigns.
The Death Penalty as State Crime is essential reading for all those engaged with capital punishment, human rights, and state crime, and will be of interest to criminologists, sociologists, legal scholars and political scientists alike.
Introduction: The State That Kills 1.Who Decides? Arbitrariness and the Decision to Seek Capital Charges 2.Who Represents? Inadequate Counsel in Death Penalty Cases 3.Who Dies? The Death Penalty and Bias 4.Who Dies, Part II: The Death Penalty, Mental Health, and Mental IllnesS 5.Who Did It? Innocence, Exonerations, and the Death Penalty 6.Who Survives? Conditions on Death Row 7.Who Kills and How? Execution Methods, Protocols, and Botched Executions Conclusion: Abolishing the State Crime of the Death Penalty
Biography
Laura L. Finley is Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Barry University in Miami, Florida. Her work is focused on state crime, human rights, gender violence, and the promotion of peace and justice. Dr. Finley is also an activist for these causes and serves on the Board of Directors of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.
