The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment

Franklin E. Zimring

Studies in Crime and Public Policy

The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment

Franklin E. Zimring

Studies in Crime and Public Policy

Description

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 The Contradictions of 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.

The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment

Franklin E. Zimring

Studies in Crime and Public Policy

Author Information

Franklin Zimring is the William G Simon Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Justice Research Program at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Crime Is Not the Problem and American Youth Violence, both published by OUP.

The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment

Franklin E. Zimring

Studies in Crime and Public Policy

Reviews and Awards

An Economist 2003 Book of the Year

"Franklin Zimring, one of America's leading criminologists, has managed to rise above the cacophony to write a thought-provoking and genuinely original book which deserves to become a classic."--The Economist

"Thought-provoking, well-founded ammunition for the endless debate over capital punishment."--Kirkus Reviews

"Zimring is doing more than making a case for or against; he's presenting an impressive array of facts, suggesting that the U.S. would be 'a better nation' if it exorcised those vigilante values."--Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Includes a sharp, sensitive discussion of the political and cultural forces shaping contemporary attitudes toward the death penalty, along with hard data about executions, a cogent explanation of the capital process and an account of successful efforts to abolish the death penalty in Europe."--Wendy Kaminer, American Prospect

"Zimring does an great public service in examining the United States' retention of a primitive and brutal punishment long after it was abandoned by other developed nations. This book will help insure that the inevitable abandonment of capital punishment by the United States is not delayed for another generation."--Stephen Bright Director, Southern Center for Human Rights

"Frank Zimring's book will revolutionize how we understand the death penalty in the United States. Why, Zimring asks, does capital punishment persist in America, almost uniquely among established democracies, despite entrenched unfairness and the virtual inevitability of error? His original and provocative answer is America's vigilante tradition. Like vigilante action, the death penalty suffers from the biases of the dominant social group and the unwarranted assumption that the guilty have been correctly identified. Highlighting this uncomfortable comparison offers a promising new approach for those committed to ending this inhumane institution of American life."--Kenneth Roth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch

"Frank Zimring's new book makes a major contribution to understanding the present situation of the death penalty in the United States and to predicting what lies ahead. Central to his analysis is his judgment that a 'fundamental value conflict' lies at the root of the struggle: Will America's frontier 'vigilante values' that support our death penalty practices survive their collision with our attachment to 'due process' values? Written in his characteristically lively style, this provocative and completely original work has much to teach both defenders and opponents of capital punishment."--Hugo Adam Bedau, author of The Death Penalty in America

"Just when you thought there was nothing new to say about capital punishment, one of America's preeminent criminal justice scholars proves you wrong. Why did democratic European governments abolish the death penalty in the teeth of popular opinion--and only later conclude that capital punishment was a human rights violation? When did the principal justification for American capital punishment shift from protecting the public to 'closure' for victims' families? What aspects of our culture explain America's distinctive attachment to the death penalty and our persistent ambivalence about it? What would it take to bring capital punishment in America to an end? Examining past and present, practice and politics, patterns and paradoxes, The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment provides striking answers to these questions."--Al Alschuler, author of Law without Values: The Life, Work, and Legacy of Justice Holmes