Hot Topics: Death Penalty: Law and Legislation

Description: Introduction: Regulating the death penalty to death -- Before constitutional regulation -- The Supreme Court steps in -- The invisibility of race in the constitutional revolution -- Between the Supreme Court and the states -- The failures of regulation -- An unsustainable system? -- Recurring patterns in constitutional regulation -- The future of the American death penalty -- Life after death.

Includes bibliographical references and index.--his 2006 book examines the development of four key movements that mediated the construction of the carceral state in important ways: the victims' movement, the women's movement, the prisoners' rights movement, and opponents of the death penalty. This book argues that punitive penal policies were forged by particular social movements and interest groups within the constraints of larger institutional structures and historical developments that distinguish the United States from other Western countries.

A breakthrough collection of key documents in the history of the capital punishment debate in the United States.

Description: Introduction -- Origins and early development -- Twentieth-century issues -- Into the twenty-first century -- Key people, laws, and events -- Documents.