While most western democracies have renounced the death penalty, capital punishment enjoys vast and growing support in the United States. A significant and vocal minority, however, continues to oppose it. Against Capital Punishment is the first full account of anti-death penalty activism in America during the years since the ten-year moratorium on executions ended. Building on in-depth interviews with movement leaders and the records of key abolitionist organizations, this work traces the struggle against the pro-death penalty backlash that has steadily gained momentum since the 1970s. It reviews the conservative turn in the courts which, over the last two decades, has forced death penalty opponents to rely less on the litigation strategies that once served them well. It describes their efforts to mount a broad-based educational and political assault on what they see as the most cruel, racist, ineffective, and expensive manifestation of a criminal justice system gone wrong. Despite the efforts of death-penalty opponents, executions in the United States are on the increase. Against Capital Punishment diagnoses the reasons for the failure to mobilize widespread opposition to executions, and assesses the prospects for opposition to capital punishment in the future of the United States.

About the Author
Herbert H. Haines is Associate Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Cortland. He is the author of Black Radicals and the Civil Rights Mainstream, 1954-1970 (1988), which was selected as an Outstanding Book by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the United States.

Reviews
Yost...has written a brilliant analysis of philosophical arguments for and against the death penalty...This is a seminal, comprehensive treatment of the capital punishment...Essential. * CHOICE *
Benjamin S. Yost has written a meticulously researched and tightly argued treatment of the morality of executionYost's book is the most powerful treatment of the procedural argument against execution in the scholarly literature. Its intricate arguments richly repay close study. In light of the injustice of capital punishment, we can only hope that Yost's arguments will serve as potent intellectual ammunition for the righteous citizens fighting tirelessly for abolition. I recommend the book wholeheartedly. * Notre Dame Philosphical Reviews *



Book Information
ISBN 9780195132496
Author Herbert H. Haines
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 408g
Dimensions(mm) 231mm * 152mm * 18mm