[Newspoetry] execution

[david moses fruchter]

a localized phenomenon known as joe futrelle may have inscribed:

> When I researched the death penalty for a newspoem I learned to my
> surprise that the majority of people executed in the US since 1976
> have been white.  (358 executions as of July 1, 2000, just over 55%).
> 

while the majority of the victims of state murder in the US have been
white, this is a misleading statistic.  another statistic which provides
some balance is that the US population is approximately 74% white (at
least as of the 1994 census; probably less now, but you get the
idea.)  that's a significant enough difference to point to racism
depending on the defendant's race as well.

yr. obt. svt.,

david


"there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
--pioneering american newspoet mark twain



> The racist application of the death penalty is most evident when you
> examine the race of the victims of the crimes for which the penalty is
> applied.  These victims are overwhelmingly white, a total of 705 or
> just over 82%.
> 
> Source: Death Penalty Information Center: www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
> http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/DRUSA-ExecUpdate.html
> 
> On Wed, Aug 09, 2000 at 11:55:37AM -0500, Bill Wendling wrote:
> > More info on this. (Can anyone guess the race of these two people?)
> ...
> 
> --
> Joe Futrelle
> Editor-within-chief,
> Newspoetry dot com
> 
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