Is the Death Penalty Dying?
European and American Perspectives

Examining the historical and political conditions that shaped death penalty practice from the end of World War II to today.

Austin Sarat (Edited by), Jürgen Martschukat (Edited by)

9780521763516, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 31 January 2011

342 pages, 3 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.63 kg

Is the Death Penalty Dying? provides a careful analysis of the historical and political conditions that shaped death penalty practice on both sides of the Atlantic from the end of World War II to the twenty-first century. This book examines and assesses what the United States can learn from the European experience with capital punishment, especially the trajectory of abolition in different European nations. As a comparative sociology and history of the present, the book seeks to illuminate the way death penalty systems and their dissolution work, by means of eleven chapters written by an interdisciplinary group of authors from the United States and Europe. This work will help readers see how close the United States is to ending capital punishment and some of the cultural and institutional barriers that stand in the way of abolition.

Introduction: transatlantic perspectives on capital punishment: national identity, the death penalty, and the prospects for abolition Austin Sarat and Jürgen Martschukat
Part I. What Is a Penalty of Death: Capital Punishment in Context: 1. The green, green grass of home: capital punishment and the penal system from a long-term perspective Pieter Spierenburg
2. Did anyone die here? Legal personalities, the supermax and the politics of abolition Colin Dayan
3. Capital punishment as homeowners insurance: the rise of the homeowner citizen and the fate of ultimate sanctions in both Europe and the United States Jonathan Simon
Part II. On the Meaning of Death and Pain in Europe and the United States: Viewing, Witnessing, Understanding: 4. The witnessing of judgment: between error, mercy, and vindictiveness Evi Girling
5. Unframing the death penalty: transatlantic discourse on the possibility of abolition and the execution of Saddam Hussein Kathryn A. Heard
6. Executions and the debate about abolition in France and in the US Simon Grivet
Part III. Abolitionist Discourses/Abolitionist Strategies/Abolitionist Dilemmas: Transatlantic Perspectives: 7. Civilized rebels: death penalty abolition in Europe as cause, mark of distinction, and political strategy Andrew Hammel
8. The death of dignity Timothy Kaufman-Osborn
9. Sovereignty and the unnecessary penalty of death: European and United States perspectives Jon Yorke
10. European policy on the death penalty Agata Fijalkowski
11. In the shadow of death: capital punishment, mass incarceration, and penal policy in the United States Marie Gottschalk.

Subject Areas: Sentencing & punishment [LNFX1], Criminal justice law [LNFB], International human rights law [LBBR], Law & society [LAQ], Comparative law [LAM], Comparative politics [JPB], Ethical issues: capital punishment [JFMC]