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The Entire Life: Nursing's Obligation to Bring Truth to the Death Penalty Debate
Author(s) -
Mogilka Susan M.
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
nursing forum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.618
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1744-6198
pISSN - 0029-6473
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-6198.1997.tb00509.x
Subject(s) - capital punishment , disadvantaged , obligation , poverty , criminology , punishment (psychology) , toll , addiction , capital (architecture) , harm , social capital , psychology , nursing , social psychology , sociology , law , psychiatry , medicine , political science , immunology , archaeology , history
The author explores the costs and impact of capital punishment on society's ability to address social ills that precede criminal behavior–lack of access to health care, child abuse, domestic violence, drug addictions, and poverty. Two case studies are used to demonstrate that the death penalty is applied arbitrarily against the disadvantaged, the mentally ill, and the retarded. The author asserts that nurses must not support killing people, and challenges nurses to find ways to address community health issues to provide alternatives to capital punishment.