Citation

Smykla JO. J. Crim. Justice 1987; 15(4): 331-347.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1987, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0047-2352(87)90019-5

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The consequences of capital punishment vibrate throughout the social structure and include persons in an ever widening circle of impact. Previous literature on the human impact of capital punishment has focused on victim families, attending physicians, death row inmates, executioners, witnesses, society, prison guards, wardens, and jurors. These studies, newspaper reports, and autobiographies reveal intense human impact on those charged with carrying out legal execution. One also learns that there is very little social science research that examines this issue. In an effort to fill some of that void, this research reports on a trend study of families of persons on Alabama's death row. It describes the families' prolonged and distorted grieving patterns, which were revealed in forty fieldwork interviews.