[Newspoetry] execution

[Joe Futrelle]

True.  However that may mislead as well, since the death penalty is
only applied to a subset of convicted criminals, not to the population
as a whole.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is data showing a
racist pattern in convictions (in other words, disproportionately many
blacks are convicted).  That ought to affect one's construal of the
racial breakdown of executed defendants.  Since if you expect the
distribution in the population as a whole to be reflected in execution
rates, you would by the same token expect the distribution of
convictions to be even more closely reflected in execution rates.

I was concerned originally when I learned the racial distribution of
execution rates that on the face of it, it runs counter to clear
racist trends in the justice system.  And could be used as a
stupid pro-death-penalty argument.

Which is why I bring up the statistic about the racial distribution of
victims.  It is a clear, unambiguous refutation to the law-and-order
argument that we need "victims rights" to balance a situation that is
already highly racist in its notion of which victims have which
rights.  You don't need to qualify the statistic to make the point.

On Wed, Aug 09, 2000 at 11:04:26AM -0700, david moses fruchter wrote:
> 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
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Newspoetry maillist  -  Newspoetry at ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu
> > http://ganymede.isdn.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/newspoetry
> > 
--
Joe Futrelle
Editor-within-chief,
Newspoetry dot com