Title: The Dark at the Top of the Stairs: Four Destructive Influences of Capital Punishment on American Criminal Justice
Abstract: This article tries to show how capital punishment can become a destructive influence on American criminal justice. It first determines that due to the availability of the death penalty, there have been misrepresentations in the law of homicide. This has also led to "penal inflation," which refers to the increased use of prison terms of life without parole (LWOP). It then notes that the general acceptance of most death penalty abolitionists of the use of LWOP sentences has resulted in an involuntary increase in the use of LWOP—one that exceeds the moderating effect on the use of the death penalty. It then addresses the continuous controversy over capital punishment, which has drained huge amounts of attention, resources, and energy that could have been used on reforms.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-04-06
Language: en
Type: book
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 17
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