Executions fail to deliver the closure victims’ families expect

Evidence

Some family members report that the speed and ease of execution left them unsatisfied (Brownlee & McGraw, 1997). “You stand there and you watch a man take two gasps and it’s over. We make it too easy,” said a mother who watched the execution of the murderer of her two children (Haney, 2005). Some survivors reported that they want offenders to suffer painful deaths. The public regards harsh punishment of criminals as showing caring for victims. Others are angry at the lengthy appeals process, which extends offenders’ lives: “He didn’t deserve to live during those six years” (Haney, 2005). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1896

Categorization

• QUESTION: This directly contradicts the closure argument for capital punishment — worth chasing the empirical literature on whether any executions satisfy surviving family members.
• SHARE: The mother’s quote (‘two gasps and it’s over’) is a sharp counterpoint to the closure argument worth sending to anyone discussing capital punishment emotionally rather than abstractly.