Allyn & Bacon / Prentice Hall

Criminal Justice



Death Nation: The Experts Explain American Capital Punishment
Matt Robinson, Eastern Kentucky University

ISBN-10: 0131586939
ISBN-13: 9780131586932

Publisher: Prentice Hall
Copyright: 2008
Format: Paper; 352 pp
Published: 02/22/2007

Suggested retail price: $42.60
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For courses in Capital Punishment, The Death Penalty, Policy Analysis/Policy Evaluation/Public Policy and Social Problems.

 

Based on empirical evidence, Death Nation offers a fair and reasoned analysis of capital punishment as it is actually practiced in the United States. It includes a discussion of death penalty history, an analysis of the death penalty law and a discussion of various policy implications. Rather than present philosophical or moral arguments, it presents findings from a survey administered to dozens of capital punishment experts throughout the United States. Included in the book are fact check sections that analyze these expert opinions for accuracy based on available empirical evidence. 

For courses in Capital Punishment, The Death Penalty, Policy Analysis/Policy Evaluation/Public Policy and Social Problems.

 

Based on empirical evidence, Death Nation offers a fair and reasoned analysis of capital punishment as it is actually practiced in the United States. It includes a discussion of death penalty history, an analysis of the death penalty law and a discussion of various policy implications. Rather than present philosophical or moral arguments, it presents findings from a survey administered to dozens of capital punishment experts throughout the United States. Included in the book are fact check sections that analyze these expert opinions for accuracy based on available empirical evidence. 

 

Hallmark Features

 

Examines important questions such as:

  • Do executions reduce murder?
  • Is capital punishment biased against any race, gender, or class of people?
  • Is the death penalty used against the innocent?
  • Is the application of the death penalty plagued by significant problems?
  • Why is the United States the only western industrialized nation to continue to carry out executions? 

Uses empirical evidence–rather than philosophical or moral arguments, to analyze the realities of the death penalty as it is actually practiced in the United States.

  • Provides a scholarly analysis of the application of the death penalty in the United States based on empirical evidence and the most recent scholarship available.
  • Focuses on how the death penalty is actually practiced in America and reveals some key empirical truths.  

Captures and presents the opinions of capital punishment experts–with regard to the effectiveness of the death penalty in America, as well as its alleged problems.

  • Allows students to learn what active capital punishment scholars think about the realities of the death penalty in the United States.
  • Presents the findings of a survey that was administered to various death penalty experts across the country. 

Includes fact check sections–to illustrate the most relevant and recent research findings with regard to capital punishment practice in the United States.

  • Analyzes expert opinion for accuracy based on available empirical evidence.  

 

PREFACE

CHAPTER ONE         CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FACTS AND HISTORY

CHAPTER TWO         DEATH PENALTY LAW

CHAPTER THREE      METHODOLOGY

CHAPTER FOUR       JUSTIFICATIONS FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: IS THE DEATH PENALTY EFFECTIVE?

CHAPTER FIVE         ALLEGED PROBLEMS WITH CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: IS THE APPLICATION OF DEATH PENALTY PLAGUED BY BIAS, ERROR AND OTHER PROBLEMS?

CHAPTER SIX           DEATH PENALTY OPINION AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Matthew Robinson is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Appalachian State University.  His main areas of interest include criminological theory, crime prevention, the death penalty, the war on drugs, and injustices of the criminal justice system.  He is author of Justice Blind? Ideals and Realities of American Criminal Justice (Prentice Hall, 2005) and Why Crime? An Integrated Systems Theory of Antisocial Behavior (Prentice Hall, 2004).  He is also Past President of the Southern Criminal Justice Association.

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