'Sharp’s book reemphasizes the tremendous costs of maintaining the death penalty—costs to real people and real families that ripple throughout generations to come.'—Saundra D. Westervelt, author of Shifting the Blame: How Victimization Became a Criminal Defense
'Everyone concerned with the effects of capital punishment must have this book.'—Margaret Vandiver, professor, department of criminology and criminal justice, University of Memphis
Murderers, particularly those sentenced to death, are considered by most to be unusually heinous, often sub-human, and entirely different from the rest of us. In Hidden Victims, sociologist Susan F. Sharp challenges this culturally ingrained perspective by reminding us that those individuals facing a death sentence, in addition to being murderers, are brothers or sisters, mothers or fathers, daughters or sons, relatives or friends. Through a series of vivid and in-depth interviews with families of the accused,
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Without denying the horror of the crimes that most death row inmates have committed or the need for confinement of those inmates, Sharp raises the question of whether Americans would still support the death penalty if they understood the full range of its consequences. It is a sobering question that readers of this book will be forced to ponder. -from the foreword by Michael L. Radelet, professor and chair, department of sociology, University of Colorado
Table of Contents
Foreword by Michael L. Radelet
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: The Death Penalty, Victims' Families, and Families of Prisoners
2. Dealing with the Horror: "We're Sentenced, Too": Families of Individuals Facing a Death Sentence
3. Trying to Cope: Withdrawal, Anger, and Joining
4. The Grief Process: Denial and Horror, the BADD Cycle (Bargaining, Activity, Disillusionment, and Desperation}
5. Facing the End: Families and Execution
6. Aftermath: Picking Up the Pieces
7. "But He's Innocent"
8. Double Losers: Being Both a Victim's Family Member and an Offender's Family Member
9. Family after the Fact: Fictive Kin and Death Row Marriages
10. The Death Penalty and Families, Revisited
11. Conclusion
Appendix A. Death Row Visitation Policies (Social/Family Visits)
Appendix B. Interview Schedule for Initial Interviews
Appendix C. Demographics of Interview Subjects
Notes
Bibliography
Index
