Flawed Executions, the Anti-Death Penalty Movement, and the Politics of Capital Punishment
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2484783 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Herb Haines (SUNY Cortland, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 125-138 |
| Publication date | 1992-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Problems (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0037-7791 • E-ISSN: 1533-8533 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3097033 |
| OpenAlex | W2126547474 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 22 |
| References cited | 11 |
“Suddenly realized grievances” (Useem 1980; Walsh 1981) play an important but largely unacknowledged role in the struggle over capital punishment in the United States. One form such grievances may take is that of “flawed executions”—executions in which public sensibilities are offended by a breakdown in routine procedures of convicting murderers and putting them to death. This paper discusses four ways in which executions may be flawed: executions may be technically botched, convicts may not play their assigned roles, the prescribed solemnity of the death chamber may be compromised, and finally, irregularities in conviction and sentencing may come to light. When abolitionist organizations and the press make issues of these flaws, they become factors in death penalty politics. An analysis of newspaper coverage suggests that flawed convictions, in which possibly innocent persons either suffer or narrowly escape execution, are especially potent threats to public support for capital punishment. The paper concludes by stressing the centrality of social movement organizations and the media in transforming underpublicized or affect-neutral events into suddenly realized grievances
Aesthetics · Capital (architecture) · Capital punishment · Conviction · Criminology · Economics · Law and economics · Movement (music) · Newspaper · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Punishment (psychology) · Sociology · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Torture, Ethics, and Law
Botched Executions and the Struggle to End Capital Punishment
Cop-Killers, Emotion, and Capital Punishment in Moncton, New Brunswick
The Crowd, the Press and the Mediated Public
The sounds of executions
Justice in America
Persuasion and Resistance
Social workers’ roles in the criminal justice system
The Promises and Perils of Technological Solutions to the Troubles with Capital Punishment
An opportunity for abolition
"What Daughters, what Wives, what Mothers, Think You, They are?" Gender and the Transformation of Executions in theUnitedStates
Examination of Decision Making and Botched Lethal Injection Executions in Texas
The Execution Spectacle and State Legitimacy
Dining on Death Row
Reflections on a 'Favorite Journal
Contesting the Victim Card
The Pro-Choice Movement
Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases
Discipline and Punish
Solidarity Model, Breakdown Model, and the Boston Anti-Busing Movement
Democracy in the Shadows
Primum Non Nocere
Resource Mobilization and Citizen Protest in Communities around Three Mile Island
Oil in Santa Barbara and Power in America
| Unique citing works | 15 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.88 |
| Citation span | 2001 - 2025 (25) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 20 |