Why Capital Punishment Persists

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Why Capital Punishment Persists

• Matthew B. Robinson, PhD
• Professor of Government Justice Studies
• Appalachian State University

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American History and Culture

• The U.S. has a long culture of violence,
  individualism, and revenge that fits well with
  capital punishment.
• Americas history and culture (especially in the
  South) helps us understand why capital
  punishment persists in the United States, which
  raises the question as to why the history and
  culture in Europe has not produced ongoing
  support for the death penalty ... .

3
American History and Culture

• Culturally, we differ in so many ways from other
  western industrialized nations that it is
  difficult to compare them. We place tremendous
  value on individualism, and we hold the
  individual accountable. We are a country founded
  on violence that has grown through violence.
  And, we have the strong fundamentalist background
  that is blaming and punishing. The list goes on
  and on.

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American History and Culture

• The death penalty is today largely a Southern
  thing. Northern states that still have it
  typically have had large movements of Southerners
  into it in the last hundred years. Im not a
  Southerner so, I have trouble understanding what
  makes the death penalty so attractive to them. I
  honestly dont think it is racism. Im inclined
  to think, rather, that Southerners favor the
  death penalty for the same reason they murder
  each other more frequently than Northerners (and
  why they make better soldiers). They like
  bloodshed. There is no doubt one or more
  dissertations waiting to written on this subject.

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American History and Culture

• The existence of slavery formalized and
  legitimated separate, unequal justice systems.
  The idea carried on after Abolition in laws
  passed by both Southern and non-Southern states
  giving African-Americans lesser access to
  justice, such as inability to testify against
  Euro-Americans or serve as jurors.

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American History and Culture

• Frank Zimrings recent book The Contradictions
  of American Capital Punishment has probably the
  best analysis. Although the military, federal
  government, and 38 states do have the death
  penalty, it is important to note that the
  geographic and cultural distribution of
  executions is not nearly as widespread. Over 90
  of post-Furman executions have occurred in states
  that had slavery in law or practice in 1860. The
  modern use of the death penalty is very deeply
  rooted in the history of slavery.
• This has been backed up with more recent
  research employing sophisticated multiple
  regression techniques that confirms the
  connections between the death penalty and
  slavery, race and lynching in the U.S.

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American History and Culture

• The death penalty exists in the U.S. because of
  social norms and politicians. Our society has a
  desire to inflict suffering on others. There is
  a norm of individualism rather than group good.
  There is a desire for blood in our society. When
  things go wrong, there is usually a demand to
  punish someone. This is linked with Americas
  long history of violence which is one of the
  reasons for the desire for handguns in this
  nation.

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American History and Culture

• Capital punishment in the United States persists
  mostly for historical, political, ideological,
  religious, economical, and social reasons
  having little to do with safety or practicality.
  Realistically, I consider capital punishment one
  of the biggest demons that the world has ever
  invented. Now, what is the driving force behind
  this demon? The most powerful single driving
  force is indifference.

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Politics

• It is politically popular to support death, in
  all but a few states it is virtual political
  suicide to oppose it.
• Politicians play to law order / death penalty
  card very effectively (politics of fear).
• In European nations, political parties control
  politics and strove to improve society regardless
  of the poll numbers. In the U.S., politicians
  push the death penalty as a simple solution to
  the crime problem. They do not care if it works
  or not. They only wish simple ideas to push on
  the public in their bids to be elected or
  reelected. This in turn increases the desire for
  capital punishment among the public.

10
Politics

• I feel that the death penalty persists in the
  United States for political reasons the public
  is completely misinformed about the problems
  associated with capital punishment and
  politicians use that to their advantage they
  are seen as 'tough on crime' if they are in favor
  of capital punishment and the public
  appreciates that.

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Politics

• I think the death penalty is a political issue
  those who oppose the death penalty are
  labeled as 'liberal' and 'soft on crime', etc.
  and are accused of coddling murderers. The U.S.
  occupies a unique position promoting justice
  and democracy and fairness while at the same time
  executing its own citizens, often in the face of
  documented problems. The need or desire to be
  tough on crime has been around for decades, but
  there is an unwillingness to go out on a limb and
  admit that, perhaps, tough on crime policies may
  be counterproductive if tough on crime isn't
  working, the instinct is to simply get tougher.
  Is there a way to step out of this mind set and
  address the real problems that affect crime in
  this country poverty, unemployment,
  frustration/hopelessness?

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Politics

• There are numerous explanations/hypotheses for
  this. In today's political-cultural context, I
  think that crime and (and now terrorism) has
  replaced communism as our enemy. Every culture
  has a sense of the 'other' that they cannot
  objectively or rationally assess and respond to.
  Politicians and the media fuel the public's anger
  and direct our collective conscience against
  particular groups as responsible for our
  problems. I believe the need for reciprocity is
  fairly innate to humans as is sense of justice,
  but other countries have redirected those
  emotions towards other things. Individuals
  naturally feel outrage and a desire for
  retribution when an individual does something
  horrible. It is just an appropriate that such
  individuals suffer some negative consequences and
  that society be protected from them. I am not
  sure that the extreme of capital punishment is
  necessary or even a beneficial response.

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Politics

• While I dont think that capital punishment is
  still used to intimidate and repress, it
  certainly is used to win elections, usually by
  discrediting the opposition. Paradoxically, a
  participatory rather than representative
  democracy has made public opinion easy to
  manipulate. The reason, I think, is that
  interest groups, identity politics, now rule.
  This situation does not foster discussion -- and
  dont get me started on the spinelessness of most
  media. Occasionally in the past weve had a true
  party system based on issues, and at those
  moments it was possible for leaders (Lincoln, F.
  Roosevelt, Truman) to inject debate and apply a
  measure of principle.

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Punishment

• Vengeance the death penalty allows US citizens
  to 'get even' with murderers. That is, we kill
  them to make ourselves feel better, not to bring
  closure, and no to re-balance the moral order.
• Many citizens do believe in a strict retributive
  view that those who kill have forfeited that
  right to life.
• Capital punishment persists due to continued
  support for retribution and deterrence (that is,
  death penalty viewed as 'just' ... criminal gets
  what he/she deserves) and that it deters others.

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Public Support

• The populace has endorsed it. In other
  countries, where it has been abolished (i.e.,
  Canada England) it is typically abolished by
  the elites (i.e., courts), while the citizens, as
  a whole, still generally support the sanction.
• Because it would seem that most people in the
  U.S. want the death penalty as a potential
  punishment for very serious criminals.

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Public Support

• We continue to use capital punishment in the
  U.S. because the majority of the citizens support
  its use. It seems to me that our society does
  not see the administration of justice. Most
  criminals disappear into the prison or other
  parts of the justice mechanisms. When an
  executions occurs citizens see justice in
  operation and feel something tangible is being
  done to 'dangerous' criminals. For the average
  citizen it validates the justice system.

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Public Support

• As Justice Marshall noted in Furman, people do
  not understand the reality of the death penalty
  (and politicians work to keep them in
  ignorance).
• I strongly believe in the Marshall hypothesis
  If the public was fully informed about the
  problems associated with capital punishment, a
  majority would oppose it.

18
Public Support

• "Public opinion continues to support it, and
  legislators in the U.S., unlike their
  counterparts in other countries, are unwilling to
  go against what is perceived as the public's
  wishes on this matter. That the public is
  largely ignorant about the way capital punishment
  in this country is actually administered does not
  seem to matter.
• "Simple ignorance. Which side of the debate
  you're on is often like which baseball team you
  support arbitrary and ignorant of the facts.
• The death penalty is held in place emotionally
  not rationally.

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Crime Rates

• "American states continue capital punishment
  because of high rates of predatory (robbery,
  rape) murder serial killing. Jurisdictions
  (states) that do not have capital punishment as
  an option have the lowest rates of these types of
  murder (with the exception of Michigan, Detroit
  in particular) and hence the least need for the
  sanction. Those jurisdictions with the highest
  rate of predatory murder use the death penalty
  most often.

20
Crime Rates

• Capital punishment has ... always been seen as
  more necessary for controlling homicide in this
  country. Certainly the world-wide revulsion
  against the brutal history of Nazi Germany caused
  a universal reaction against the fundamental
  principle of state-sanctioned killing. The
  question is why this revulsion did not extend to
  the United States and cause the same abolition of
  capital punishment that occurred in other
  industrialized nations. One naturally looks for
  historical factors that set the U.S. apart.
  Aside from the prolonged frontier era ... another
  factor was the prolonged slavery era that
  resulted, among other things, in quite a high
  proportion of black people in the population
  relative to other economically comparable
  nations. Perhaps another major factor in the
  important role of capital punishment in this
  nation was a perceived need to keep slaves or
  ex-slaves under control.

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Religion

• I am convinced that religion, peculiarly enough,
  plays a supportive role, despite the fact that
  most mainline religions condemn (the church
  leaders may say one thing, but the congregation
  believes something entirely different)."
• High religiosity might also have a role to play.
  While Jesus tells his follows to no longer
  follow 'the law of Moses,' i.e., the lex
  talionis, in the Gospel of Matthew, his
  evangelical followers today don't seem to have
  noticed."
• Support for the death penalty correlates
  strongly with religious beliefs. This is
  undoubtedly the course of much public support.
  Why the intellectual elite has not overridden the
  public, as in Europe, is another matter."

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Government Structure

• US is more democratic than Europe. High violent
  crime rates in the US lead the public to
  support the death penalty ... public will can
  prevail in the US because of federalism
  (state control of administration of criminal
  justice).
• Primarily because our legal system is driven by
  local politicians, as opposed to the national
  bureaucracies of other countries. In other
  countries, where public support for the death
  penalty is comparable to the United States,
  national leaders have moved beyond death they
  know it is a bad idea, impossible to administer
  fairly, rarely used, ineffective, and really a
  distraction. But our system is driven by local
  prosecutors who do not see the big picture. They
  continue to sell death to the local people who
  end up on their juries.

23
Government Structure

• Because of a weak federal government, both legal
  and extralegal execution were allowed to be
  integral to forming local and state governments.
  Examples are the South Carolina Regulators (18th
  century), San Francisco vigilantes (1850s) Ku
  Klux Klan of the late 1860s.

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So Why DoesCapital Punishment Persist?Which are
Relevant???

• History/Culture of Violence?
• Politics?
• Critical Part of Punishment?
• Public Support?
• Crime Rates?
• Religion?
• Government Structure?

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What is going to happen?

• New Jersey
• New York
• New Mexico
• North Carolina