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Home / David Garland: Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition

HomeDavid Garland: Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition

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David Garland: Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition

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Sentencing and Corrections

05/05/2011 Vera Institute of Justice

parallels

Jeffrey Butts 6 May 9:28AM

For me, Garland's concise summary underscores the parallels between capital punishment in the criminal system and criminal court transfer out of the juvenile system. Transfer for juveniles has many of the same features: ineffectiveness, inconsistency, racial/ethnic bias, and high-value political symbolism. The same thing can probably be said for how sentencing practices reflect the flawed logic of American drug policy. Maybe the death penalty is not so much peculiar, but rather the most dramatic expression of our politicized justice system.

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About This Podcast

In this podcast New York University sociologist David W. Garland discusses his book, "Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition." Garland presents evidence that the death penalty in the United States fails to realize its stated goals. Yet it persists here—alone among developed nations—because it serves social and political ends.

Garland is a professor of sociology at New York University and the Arthur T. Vanderbilt Professor of Law at the NYU School of Law. This presentation is part of the Vera Institute of Justice's Neil A. Weiner Research Speaker Series.

Transcript {pdf}