首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Finding something new to say about America’s love affair with the death penalty is not easy. The subject not only amuses intense
Finding something new to say about America’s love affair with the death penalty is not easy. The subject not only amuses intense
admin
2013-01-29
27
问题
Finding something new to say about America’s love affair with the death penalty is not easy. The subject not only amuses intense emotions, it has produced an ocean of comment from lawyers, judges, politicians, campaigners, statisticians, social scientists and quite a few demagogues. Nevertheless, Franklin Zimring, one of America’s leading criminologists, has managed to rise above this cacophony to write a thought-provoking and genuinely original book, ’The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment’, which deserves to become a classic.
Mr. Zimring tackles head-on the most puzzling question of all: why are Americans so determined to keep the death penalty when nearly all other developed democracies have given it up, and now view it as barbaric? In the past two decades, attitudes in America and Europe have diverged so much that any dialogue on the subject has been replaced by blank incomprehension, and America’s retention of capital punishment has become a significant diplomatic irritant. For European governments the abolition of capital punishment is a human-rights priority, and they have expended valuable political capital in trying to achieve it. American governments, Republican and Democratic, insist that the death penalty has nothing to do with human-rights, and deeply resent European efforts to make its abolition an international norm.
The difference between European and American attitudes, says Mr. Zimring, is not the breadth of support for the death penalty, but its depth. At the time of the death penalty’s abolition in each developed country, a majority similar to America’s, currently 65%, wanted to keep it, according to opinion polls. But when European political elites turned against it after the second world war, electorates acquiesced. Today most Europeans probably would not want it back.
The death penalty is a far more contentious issue in America, says Mr. Zimring, because the debate about it draws on a cherished American political tradition which does not exist anywhere else: vigilante justice. Many death-penalty supporters see executions not as acts of a distant or unreliable government, or even as a crime-control measure, but as an instrument of local, community justice, a form of vengeance on behalf of the victims’ relatives.
In a startling analysis, Mr. Zimring shows that most executions are performed in a few states in the south and south-west where, the lynching of African-Americans, other forms of mob violence and six-shooter justice were most endemic at the end of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Opinion-poll support for the death penalty may be fairly uniform across America, and 38 states have the death penalty on their books, but many states hardly ever execute anyone. The vast bulk of executions take place only where the values of the lynch mob have endured, he says.
Many people will find this linkage distasteful. But Mr. Zimring marshals a powerful ease for it, and sceptics will have to reply to his evidence, not just brash the argument aside. Americans, distrust of overweening government power is as deeply rooted a tradition as vigilante justice, Mr. Zimring concedes. However, when it comes to the death penalty, this distrust is manifest not in an abolitionist movement, as in other countries, but in the maze of legal-appeals procedures which mean that most murderers condemned to death spend years, even decades, on death mw. More death-row inmates are likely to die of old age than by execution. Neither supporters nor opponents of the death penalty are happy with this odd result.
What Americans really want is an error-free death penalty, but this can never be guaranteed, as the recent spate of death-row exonerations has shown. Moreover, Mr. Zimring argues that Americans’ am bivalence about capital punishment can never be resolved. Sooner or later, one of these competing traditions——a regard for careful legal processes to second-guess and constrain government actions, or the desire for vengeance——will have to give way. That will not happen easily. Both date back to the country’s founding.
Mr. Zimring believes, on scanty evidence, that Americans will eventually abandon vigilante values, and abolish the death penalty. But he admits that this will be a messy, bitter affair. And he could well be wrong. His analysis might equally point to another, less palatable outcome: a sweeping aside of legal constraints, and a more rapid pace of executions.
What are European views on the death penalty, according to the authors?
选项
A、That it is uncivilised and should be stopped everywhere because it infringes people’s freedoms.
B、That America annoys people by insisting on keeping the death penalty.
C、That Americans and Europeans define human-rights in different ways.
D、That nearly two thirds of people disagree.
答案
A
解析
本题问的是欧洲人对死刑的看法,并未涉及与美国人的比较。所以答案B和C不对。从第二段第一句“when nearly all other developed democracies have given it up, and now view it as barbaric”,可知欧洲国家的人民认为死刑是野蛮的,应该废弃。所以A正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/Xv1O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
FrictionbetweenAmerica’smilitaryanditscivilianoverseersisnothingnew.America’s220-yearexperimentinciviliancontrol
FrictionbetweenAmerica’smilitaryanditscivilianoverseersisnothingnew.America’s220-yearexperimentinciviliancontrol
Ifapersontalksabouthisweaknesses,thelistenerisexpectedtosaysomethinginthewayof______.
IwasvisitingNewYorklastweekandnoticedsomethingI’dneverthoughtI’dsayaboutthecity.Yes,nightlifeisprettymuch
IwasvisitingNewYorklastweekandnoticedsomethingI’dneverthoughtI’dsayaboutthecity.Yes,nightlifeisprettymuch
Whatismeant【51】theword"friend"?Thedictionary【52】itas:."oneattachedto【53】byaffectionoresteem".Americansuset
Whatismeant【51】theword"friend"?Thedictionary【52】itas:."oneattachedto【53】byaffectionoresteem".Americansuset
Whatismeant【51】theword"friend"?Thedictionary【52】itas:."oneattachedto【53】byaffectionoresteem".Americansuset
随机试题
并联电阻后的等效电阻的倒数等于各个并联电阻的倒数之和。()
有应用抗菌药物的指征的是
下列关于单位定期存款限制支出行为的表述中,不符合商业银行法律制度规定的是()。
近代中国率先主动了解西方。提倡“师夷”之说的是魏源。()
在工作单位中,我会()
小张的手表和闹钟走时都不准,手表比标准时间每9小时快3分钟,闹钟比标准时间每6小时慢5分钟。一天,小张发现手表指示9点27分时,闹钟刚好指示9点41分,那么至少要经过()小时,手表和闹钟才能指示同一时刻。
下列描写节气的诗句,按时间先后顺序排列正确的是:①一二三四五六七,万木生芽是今日②露从今夜白,月是故乡明③梨花自寒食,进节只愁余④夏气重渊底,春光万象中
远程登陆Telnet采用了______模式。
Alongtimeago,atanationalconferenceonbiology,hecautiously______hisnewtheoryoflife.
(81)ThenameGenghisKhan(成吉思汗)probablymakesmanypeoplethinkofconqueringwarriorsonhorsebackleavingburningcitiesand
最新回复
(
0
)