THE CONTRADICTIONS OF AMERICAN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT by Franklin E. Zimring ( 9780195178203 )

Item Details

Title:

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF AMERICAN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

By:

Franklin E. Zimring

Format:

Paperback

List price:

£19.99

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£14.59

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ISBN 10:

0195178203

ISBN 13:

9780195178203

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Publisher:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS INC

Pub. date:

21 October, 2004

Series:

Studies in Crime and Public Policy

Pages:

272

Synopsis:

Why does the United States continue to employ the death penalty when fifty other developed democracies have abolished it? Why does capital punishment become more problematic each year? How can the death penalty conflict be resolved? In Contradictions in American Capital Punishment, Frank Zimring reveals that the seemingly insoluble turmoil surrounding the death penalty reflects a deep and long-standing division in American values, a division that he predicts will soon bring about the end of capital punishment in our country. On the one hand, execution would seem to violate our nation's highest legal principles of fairness and due process. It sets us increasingly apart from our allies and indeed is regarded by European nations as a barbaric and particularly egregious form of American exceptionalism. On the other hand, the death penalty represents a deeply held American belief in violent social justice that sees the hangman as an agent of local control and safeguard of community values. Zimring uncovers the most troubling symptom of this attraction to vigilante justice in the lynch mob.He shows that the great majority of executions in recent decades have occurred in precisely those Southern states where lynchings were most common a hundred years ago. It is this legacy, Zimring suggests, that constitutes both the distinctive appeal of the death penalty in the United States and one of the most compelling reasons for abolishing it. Impeccably researched and engagingly written, Contradictions in American Capital Punishment casts a clear new light on America's long and troubled embrace of the death penalty.

Illustrations:

16 line illus.

Publication:

Imprint:

Oxford University Press Inc

Prizes:

Winner of An Economist 2003 Book of the Year.

Returns:

Returnable

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