Facing the Death Penalty: Essays on a Cruel and Unusual Punishment

by Michael L. Radelet (Editor)

Offers an examination of what life under a sentence of death is like for condemned inmates and their families, how and why various professionals assist them in their struggle for life, and what these personal experiences with capital punishment tell us about the wisdom of this penal policy.

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Michael L. Radelet is a sociologist at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is a professor in, and chairs, the Department of Sociology at the university. In his research, Radelet focuses on his interests in criminology, deviance, capital punishment, societal reaction to crime, racial disparities in death sentencing and crime victims. Radelet has taught courses covering introductory sociology, criminology for both undergraduate and graduate levels, capital punishment for both undergraduate and graduate levels, sociology of mental health and illness for both undergraduate and graduate levels, graduate seminar on health professions, social and ethical issues in medical practice, human development, statistics, and social problems. He is the author of the book Facing the Death Penalty that was published in 1989, in which he describes the realities of capital punishment to those condemned.

Reviews

[Bryan Whitehead · Rating 4 out of 5]

Looking for balanced debate over the issue of capital punishment in the United States? You won’t find it in this one. Editor Michael Radalet has assembled a collection of essays from a variety of sources, all expressing varying degrees of opposition to the death penalty (and by “varying degrees” I mean varying from a detached sense of intellectual disgust to shrill sermons on the inhumanity of it all). Still, honest advocacy is a good thing (at least when it’s honest ... every once in awhile you’ll catch one of the writers omitting details that don’t serve the cause, such as the essay that quotes George Westinghouse’s opposition to electrocution without bothering to explain that he had a substantial economic stake in defeating the use of the electric chair). And as in any collection of works from various authors, some essays are more interesting, informative and persuasive than others.