Evolving Standards of Decency: Popular Culture and Capital Punishment
"Evolving Standards of Decency examines the ways in which popular culture portrays the death penalty. By analyzing literature and film, Atwell argues that capital punishment becomes much more complex when both offenders and victims are presented as fully developed individuals." Those studying justice issues, corrections, or capital punishment will find this an accessible work that places the stories read in novels or seen in movies in the context of the legal system that has the power of life...
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The U.S. Supreme Court, as part of its measurement of the acceptability of the death penalty, looks to "evolving standards of decency" among the public at large. Without arguing for a direct cause and effect relationship, Atwell (criminal justice, Radford U.) examines how genres of popular culture have treated the issue of the death penalty, finding signs of progress and retrogression in way Americans view capital punishment and suggesting the power of popular culture to humanize or reify the issue. In individual chapters she looks at "true-life novels," film adaptations of novels, and other films and crime fiction. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Ch. 1The public and capital punishment : past and present6Ch. 2"A random assortment of pariahs" : the Supreme Court considers the death penalty24Ch. 3Real people and "true-life novels"48Ch. 4Novels transformed into films78Ch. 5Killing to show that killing is wrong : the death penalty in the movies111Ch. 6If words could kill : crime fiction and the death penalty128Ch. 7The power of stories145
