Sentenced to Death

The criminal justice system in America is as powerful a shaper of history and society as its better-known counterparts—the military politics government and technology. In a country that lacks a mandatory death sentence for specific crimes the American strategy for execution proves to be based more upon distinctions between offenders than upon distinctions between offenses.<p>Five important novels--<i>McTeague An American Tragedy Native Son In Cold Blood </i> and <i>The Executioner’s Song</i>—bring readers a vivid awareness of America’s punitive codes. Each details the story of a life that leads to the gallows. <i>Sentenced to Death</i> places these works against the historical background of crime and capital punishment in America a nation where public discourse on crime is dominated by images of the electric chair and the gas chamber by maximum security prisons by hardened convicts out on parole. Such images in turn mirror and shape the exercise of punitive power.<p>This pro