Citation

Lewis PW. Crime Delinq. 1979; 25(2): 200-211.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1979, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/001112877902500205

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Because most of the professional literature on capital punishment reflects only official statistics on death row populations, the author decided to spend eighteen days on Florida's Death Row, which contains the largest population of condemned men in the country, interviewing inmates and studying their prison files. Eighty-three of the (then) ninety-six death row inmates were interviewed extensively. A criminological profile of Florida's condemned is presented, and the backgrounds of the offenders and a typical week on death row are described. It is concluded that the race of the victim may play a significant role in the sentencing of capital offenders, and that executing these offenders does not provide significantly more incapacitation than life sentences would.

Language: en