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CONGRESS AND CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: An Exercise in Symbolic Politics
Author(s) -
STOLZ BARBARA ANN
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9930.1983.tb00294.x
Subject(s) - legislation , capital punishment , capital (architecture) , function (biology) , politics , punishment (psychology) , sentence , law , deterrence (psychology) , political science , the symbolic , law and economics , criminology , sociology , psychology , social psychology , history , psychoanalysis , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , evolutionary biology , biology
Even when federal authorities were legally empowered to impose a death sentence, the sanction was rarely carried out. Between 1930 and 1976, there were only 33 such executions. During the past decade, bills, both imposing and abolishing capital punishment, have been introduced repeatedly in the U.S. Congress. Furthermore, certain members of Congress have demonstrated intense interest in such efforts. The continued debate and interest is better explained by the symbolic rather than tangible components of such legislation. This article examines four aspects of the symbolic component of federal death penalty legislation: reassurance function, moral‐educative function, model for the states, and the deterrence debate.