This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Lachance, D. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Executing Charles Starkweather

Lethal punishment in an age of rehabilitation

University of Minnesota, USA

In the 1950s, the use and popularity of the death penalty declined as penal welfarism pervaded political and academic approaches to crime control. Analysis of responses to the 1958 crimes and 1959 execution of teenage serial killer Charles Starkweather reveals, however, that the integrity of penal welfarism was badly shaken by a conflict between the political and intellectual commitments required for its maintenance. As a result, Starkweather's crime and the responses it elicited called into question the core assumptions upon which 1950s penology was based: a belief that the world was a knowable, controllable place and that a competent state could use social science to maximize social harmony. Starkweather's case ultimately reveals one impetus for the return of retributive responses to crime in political and academic circles and the re-emergence of the death penalty in the last three decades of the 20th century.

Key Words: capital punishment • death penalty • penal welfarism • retribution • social determinism

Punishment & Society, Vol. 11, No. 3, 337-358 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1462474509334607


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?