Synopses & Reviews
While most western democracies have renounced the death penalty, capital punishment enjoys vast and growing support in the United States. A significant and vocal minority, however, continues to oppose it.
Against Capital Punishment is the first full account of anti-death penalty activism in America during the years since the ten-year moratorium on executions ended.
Building on in-depth interviews with movement leaders and the records of key abolitionist organizations, this work traces the struggle against the pro-death penalty backlash that has steadily gained momentum since the 1970s. It reviews the conservative turn in the courts which, over the last two decades, has forced death penalty opponents to rely less on the litigation strategies that once served them well. It describes their efforts to mount a broad-based educational and political assault on what they see as the most cruel, racist, ineffective, and expensive manifestation of a criminal justice system gone wrong.
Despite the efforts of death-penalty opponents, executions in the United States are on the increase. Against Capital Punishment diagnoses the reasons for the failure to mobilize widespread opposition to executions, and assesses the prospects for opposition to capital punishment in the future of the United States.
Review
"Herbert H. Haines's fine book, Against Capital Punishment, is a compelling study of the anti-death penalty movement in America today, a vital but largely unstudied issue. This humane book is a must read for serious students of capital punishment." Robert Johnson, Professor and Chair of the Department of Justice, Law and Society, American University, and author, Condemned to Die: Life Under Sentence of Death and Death Work: A Study of the Modern Execution Process
Synopsis
Built on in-depth interviews with movement leaders and the records of key abolitionist organizations, this work traces the struggle against capital punishment in the United States since 1972. Haines reviews the legal battles that led to the short-lived suspension of the death penalty and examines the subsequent conservative turn in the courts that has forced death penalty opponents to rely less on litigation strategies and more on political action. Employing social movement theory, he diagnoses the causes of the anti-death penalty movement's inability to mobilize widespread opposition to executions, and he makes pointed recommendations for improving its effectiveness. For this edition Haines has included a new Afterword in which he summarizes developments in the movement since 1994.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-250) and index.
About the Author
Herbert H. Haines is Associate Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Cortland. He is the author of
Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Mainstream, 1954-1970 (1988), which was selected as an Outstanding Book by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Death Penalty Abolitionism in America
1. The Fall and Rise of Capital Punishment: 1965-1972
2. The Return of the Executioner: 1976-1982
3. The Reemergence of Political Abolitionism
4. Framing Disputes in the Movement Against Capital Punishment
5. Abolitionism at the Crossroads
6. Reframing Capital Punishment: Pragmatic Abolitionism
Afterword
Notes
References
Index