首页
登录
职称英语
Finding something new to say about America’s love affair with the death penal
Finding something new to say about America’s love affair with the death penal
游客
2025-04-21
74
管理
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 In the past two decades, attitudes in America and Europe have diverged so much that any dialogue on the subject has been replaced by blank incomprehension, and America’s retention of capital punishment has become a significant diplomatic irritant.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. [br] 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://tihaiku.com/zcyy/4046631.html
相关试题推荐
FindingsomethingnewtosayaboutAmerica’sloveaffairwiththedeathpenal
FindingsomethingnewtosayaboutAmerica’sloveaffairwiththedeathpenal
IsittruethattheAmericanintellectualisrejectedandconsideredofnoa
IsittruethattheAmericanintellectualisrejectedandconsideredofnoa
ThebearisaclassicandenduringAmericansymbolforthebenevolentwild.
ThebearisaclassicandenduringAmericansymbolforthebenevolentwild.
Heisofteninclinedto______inotherpeople’saffairs,whichisnoneofhisb
Itseemedtome,andstilldoes,thatthesystemofAmericanbusinessoftenp
Itseemedtome,andstilldoes,thatthesystemofAmericanbusinessoftenp
Itseemedtome,andstilldoes,thatthesystemofAmericanbusinessoftenp
随机试题
[originaltext]M:Hi,Janet.Haveyouseentheexamscheduleforthistermyet?
税务规划由于依据的原理不同,采用的方法和手段也不同,主要可分为避税筹划、节税筹划
患者,男,48岁,6年来站立或腹压增高时反复出现右阴囊肿块,平卧安静时用手将肿块
(2012年)数字地图经可视化处理在屏幕上显示的数字地图,被称为()。A
不得从住宅专项维修资金中列支的费用有( )。A:应由建设单位承担的住宅共用部位
三相对称负载星接时。相电压有效值是线电压有效值的()倍。
实现资源共享,推进文明共担 萧伯纳曾经说过:“如果你有一个苹果,我有一个苹
人力资源管理职能和战略规划职能之间存在四种不同层次的联系,在单向联系层次上,(
根据民事诉讼法律制度的规定,下列关于民事诉讼级别管辖的表述中,不正确的是( )。
付款单据用来记录企业支付给供应商的款项。付款单据处理主要包括对()进行操作。A、
最新回复
(
0
)