Secrecy of executions contradicts the deterrent rationale for capital punishment
Evidence
The way in which executions are conducted is another reflection of American society’s conflict over the death penalty. Executions are usually carried out at midnight, hidden from public view. The media are banned from filming them. For utilitarians, who claim that executions prevent homicides, executing the condemned in semisecrecy defeats its assumed deterrent purpose. Stealth executions will not strike fear in violence-prone individuals. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2090
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- SEED: Article angle: ‘The stealth death penalty’ — why a punishment justified by deterrence is hidden from the public whose fear is supposed to deter it.
- BMF: The hidden-at-midnight execution evokes the state violence out of public view in Zamyatin’s We, where the Benefactor executes in secluded spectacle-authority rituals.
Related
- Secluded midnight executions undermine the stated deterrent rationale for the death penalty. (similarity 0.94)
- Most executions go unnoticed, so the public cannot gauge deterrent threats. (similarity 0.83)
- The death-penalty deterrence question resists controlled experiments because society cannot randomize executions. (similarity 0.78)