Juvenile Punishment And Its Effects On Society - amazonia.fiocruz.br

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The term is highly politicized, and is used by both death penalty advocates and its opponents to build arguments in favor of their respective positions. Closure has been indelibly linked to both capital punishment and media institutions since the late s and early s. Such assertions are also closely related to beliefs that a particular offender is defiant or lacks remorse. Surprisingly, however, the association between closure and capital punishment has only recently been subjected to empirical scrutiny. Another way to decouple closure from capital punishment is for media organizations to change their practices of covering perpetrators, such as by not continually showing images of the perpetrator and by incorporating a more extensive focus on the victims and their families.

The identification of closure with capital punishment is a fairly recent development, given the centuries-long history of the death penalty Juvenile Punishment And Its Effects On Society the United States. Media institutions in particular have assumed a bullhorn role in broadcasting the association between capital punishment and closure, publicly articulating, circulating, and ultimately reinforcing this link.

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Death penalty researcher Frank Zimring reported that, beforeclosure was never mentioned by the media in conjunction with capital punishment; inthe two were mentioned in the same context only once Zimring,p. Closure concerns can appear in diverse social and cultural contexts, from adoption, personal injury, and death care to divorce, forensics, and memorialization Berns, Most scholarship addressing closure, however, has focused on its use as a justification for capital punishment Kanwar,p.

Scholars have observed that closure can be achieved through other means, including forgiveness, mercy, and alternative Juvenile Punishment And Its Effects On Society such as life in prison without the possibility of parole. Both opponents and supporters of the death penalty have taken stances on the propriety of closure in connection with execution, from abolitionist organizations such as Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation to advocate organizations such as the National Organization of Parents of Go here Children—but, in doing so, both stances have embraced and thus helped to legitimate the concept Kanwar,p.

On the one hand, those who disagree that capital punishment effects closure observe that legal proceedings are ill equipped to resolve grief and other emotions, focused as they are adjudicating guilt and allocating punishment Kanwar,pp.

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Indeed, they argue, such contexts are more likely to exploit family members than to heal Juvenile Punishment And Its Effects On Society, or at the very least produce many contradictory emotional responses Kanwar,pp. They also point to the possibilities of attaining closure through mercy and even forgiveness rather than vengeance, and to the fact that some victims who witness executions still feel click here and anger, now compounded by disappointment and disillusionment Berns,p.

The media can effectively and consistently reinforce the association between closure and capital punishment because it plays key roles not only in broadcasting but in preserving historical perceptions and images, constructing American consciousness and contributing indelibly to American collective memory. Media focus our attention in both contemporary and historical ways. Thus, the intersection between capital punishment, closure, and media also entails a debate over how American citizens and institutions should regard, react to, and reproduce images of and information about criminal perpetrators.

Looking at perpetrators may feel somehow inappropriate in ways that gazing at images of their victims and rescuers does not, and may even approach a breach of moral propriety. But there can be less salubrious motives to learn about perpetrators, ranging from morbid curiosity to worshipful fascination. Mitigating this visceral experience, however, is an awareness that preventing future violent acts may entail learning more, not less, about those who instigate them. Victims gained enhanced visibility in legal proceedings in when the US Supreme Court ruled in Payne v. Tennessee U.

The media was ready to help to convey these conceptions of closure to a wider audience through such events as the televised trial of O. Simpson that captivated audiences, sowing the seeds for cultural connections between courtrooms, therapy, and victims.

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The federal government, for example, prohibits photographic, audio, and visual recording devices at federal executions in 28 C. Estelle, F. Department of Corrections, P. Vasquez, U. LEXISp.]