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Crime Law Soc Change (2008) 49:289302
DOI 10.1007/s10611-008-9107-7
Rachel Philofsky
Published online: 3 April 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract Few criminal justice topics have garnered as much attention as capital punishment. This voluminous literature ranges from constitutional and procedural issues to race issues and gender issues. While the intellectual and legal community has paid a great deal of attention to the role of race in capital punishment, as well as the role of gender in capital punishment, the extant literature is lacking with regard to African-American women and the death penalty. To be clear, the lack of literature is not because there are no African-American women on death row. This article attempts to fill a void in the capital punishment literature through a qualitative analysis that explores the lives and crimes of African-American women on death row.
Introduction
Few criminal justice topics in the USA have garnered as much attention as capital punishment. It stirs deep emotions and is often the subject of heated debate. The attention does not end therethis polarizing issue has also been the subject of books, movies, newspaper editorials and other forms of media and research too numerous to count. Throughout the turbulent history of capital punishment, scholars have directed a great deal of attention toward the analysis of race and the death penalty as well as gender and the death penalty. However, the role of African-American women in the capital punishment landscape has consistently been overlooked. The present research attempts to fill a void in the capital punishment
R. Philofsky (*)
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Maryland, 2220 LeFrak Hall, College Park, MD 20742, USAe-mail: rachel.philofsky@gmail.com
R. Philofsky
Governors Office of Crime Control and Prevention, 300 E. Joppa Road, Suite 1105, Baltimore, MD 21286-3016, USA
NO9107; No of Pages
The lives and crimes of African-American women on death row: a case study
290 R. Philofsky
literature through a qualitative analysis exploring the lives and crimes of African-American women on death row. Each womans story will be told in narrative form, with special attention paid to the impact of their race and gender on the crimes they committed and their subsequent death sentence. Before turning to a detailed description of the lives and...