Using a historical framework, this book offers not only the penal history of the death penalty in the states that have given women the death penalty, but it also retells the stories of the women who have been executed and those currently awaiting their fate on death row. This work takes a historical look at women and the death penalty in the United States from 1900 to 1998. It gives the reader a look at the penal codes in the various states regarding the death penalty and the personal stories of women who have been executed or who are currently on death row. As Americans continue to debate the enforcement of the death penalty, the issues of race and gender as they relate to the death penalty are also debated. This book offers a unique perspective to a recurring sociopolitical issue.
In late summer 1923, legal hangings in Texas came to an end, and the electric chair replaced the gallows. Of 520 convicted capital offenders sentenced to die between 1923 and 1972, 361 were actually executed, thus maintaining Texas’ traditional reputation as a staunch supporter of capital punishment. This book is the single most comprehensive examination to date of capital punishment in any one state, drawing on data for legal executions from 1819 to 1990. The authors show persuasively how slavery and the racially biased practice of lynching in Texas led to the institutionalization and public approval of executions skewed according to race, class, and gender, and they also track long-term changes in public opinion up to the present. The stories of the condemned are masterfully interwoven with fact and interpretation to provide compelling reading for scholars of law, criminal justice, race relations, history, and sociology, as well as partisans on both sides of the debate.
The history of the execution of women in the United States has largely been ignored and scholars have given scant attention to gender issues in capital punishment. This historical analysis examines the social, political and economic contexts in which the justice system has put women to death, revealing a pattern of patriarchal domination and female subordination. The book includes a discussion of condemned women granted executive clemency and judicial commutations, an inquiry into women falsely convicted in potentially capital cases and a profile of the current female death row population.
Documents the life stories of death-row prisoners and the author's experiences as a pro bono attorney on Texas death penalty cases to present arguments for the abolishment of state-sanctioned executions.
This study furnishes data on executions performed in the United States under civil authority. It includes a description of each individual executed and the circumstances surrounding the crime for which the person was convicted. Variables include age, race, name, sex, and occupation of the offender, place, jurisdiction, date and method of execution and the crime for which the offender was executed.
The hidden past of racial violence is illuminated in this skillfully selected compendium of articles from a wide range of papers large and small, radical and conservative, black and white. Through these pieces, readers witness a history of racial atrocities and are provided with a sobering view of American history.
Killing as punishment in the USA, whether ordained by lynch mob or by the courts, reflects a paradox of the American nation: liberal, pluralistic, yet prone to lethal violence. This book examines the encounter between the legal history of the death penalty in America and its cinematic representations, through a comprehensive narrative and historical view of films dealing with this genre, from the silent era to the present. It addresses central issues including racial prejudice and attitudes towards the execution of women, and discusses how cinema has chosen to deal with them. It explores how such films as Michael Curtiz's 20,000 Years in Sing Sing and Fritz Lang's The Fury, Errol Morris's documentary The Thin Blue Line, John Singleton's Rosewood and Frank Darabont's death-row movie The Green Mile, have helped to shape real historical developments and public perceptions by bringing into sharper relief the legal, social and cultural tensions associated with capital punishment. In the process, Yvonne Kozlovksy-Golan provides the reader with a superb understanding of the complexities of the death penalty through US history.
The two-volume Encyclopedia of Prisons and Correctional Facilities aims to provide a critical overview of penal institutions within a historical and contemporary framework. Issues of race, gender, and class are fully integrated throughout in order to demonstrate the complexity of the implementation and intended results of incarceration. The Encyclopedia contains biographies, articles describing important legal statutes, and detailed and authoritative descriptions of the major prisons in the United States. Comparative data and examples are employed to analyze the American system within an international context. The Encyclopedia's 400 entries are written by recognized authorities. The appendix contains a comprehensive listing of every federal prison in the U.S., complete with facility details and service information.