Murdering Myths: The Story Behind the Death Penalty

by Judith W. Kay

Overview

In the thirty years since the reinstatement of the death penalty, nearly 1,000 people have been executed, and over 3,500 people currently sit on death row in America's prisons. At the same time, a wide range of activists, scholars, and researchers have raised profound questions about the execution of innocent people, racial bias in sentencing, and capital punishment's failure to act as a deterrent. Why, then, do most Americans still support the death penalty?

In Murdering Myths: The Story Behind the Death Penalty, Judith Kay goes beyond the hype and statistics to examine Americans' deep-seated beliefs about crime and punishment. She argues that Americans share a counter-productive idea of justice—that punishment corrects bad behavior, suffering pays for wrong deeds, and victims' desire for revenge is natural and inevitable. Drawing on interviews with both victims and inmates, Kay shows how this belief harms perpetrators, victims, and society and calls for a new narrative that recognizes the humanity in all of us.

Insightful and thought-provoking, Murdering Myths is a fresh look at one of the most contentious issues in American life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780742523364
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	06/03/2005
Series:	Polemics
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.52(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Judith W. Kay is associate professor of religion at the University of Puget Sound.

Table of Contents

Chapter 2 Introduction
Chapter 3 The Story We Tell
Chapter 4 The Incoherency (and Immorality) of Punishment
Chapter 5 The Rules of the Game
Chapter 6 Rectification Through Suffering
Chapter 7 The Story's Vices
Chapter 8 Habits Begotten by Violence
Chapter 9 Making the Three Rs Stick
Chapter 10 Of Monsters and Men
Chapter 11 The Story's Broken Promise
Chapter 12 Living a New Story
Chapter 13 Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

Linda White

Rigorously researched and painstakingly outlined, Murdering Myths is a gentle, but forthright indictment of our cultural story - the story that says we must continue to implement the death penalty in the United States because it is the only appropriate response to those violent crimes we consider particularly heinous.

Howard Zehr

The 'story' in this book is deeper and more profound than the title may suggest. Using the analytical framework of narrative, Kay explores important interrelated issues: the assumptions and implications of our punishment culture; the dynamics that can lead people to violence but also back again; the issues and obstacles that victims face on the road to healing; the journey that we as a society must make if we are to end the cycle of violence and victimization. Kay suggests that as victims, as offenders, as a society our salvation lies in re-storying our lives in ways that affirm each of us as valuable individuals in relationship to one another.

Austin Sarat

Murdering Myths is a work of great moral seriousness. Judith Kay asks us to think together about the stories that animate our culture's consideration of crime and punishment, that fuel the violence of murder and of the death penalty. She helps us see how those stories work and invites her readers to consider new stories that would replace vice with virtue, violence with reconciliation. This is a substantial accomplishment.

Editorial Reviews

Murdering Myths is a work of great moral seriousness. Judith Kay asks us to think together about the stories that animate our culture's consideration of crime and punishment, that fuel the violence of murder and of the death penalty. She helps us see how those stories work and invites her readers to consider new stories that would replace vice with virtue, violence with reconciliation. This is a substantial accomplishment.

Austin Sarat

... all readers will find compelling content to test their own modes of thinking about how the infliction of pain relates to the achievement of justice.

Choice Reviews - R. Zingraff

Rigorously researched and painstakingly outlined, Murdering Myths is a gentle, but forthright indictment of our cultural story - the story that says we must continue to implement the death penalty in the United States because it is the only appropriate response to those violent crimes we consider particularly heinous.

Linda White

Using narrative as a frame for her ethical analysis, Judith Kay offers a fresh look at the death penalty. Her book is a refreshing addition to a conversation that drones on while people die.

Waterwheel

The 'story' in this book is deeper and more profound than the title may suggest. Using the analytical framework of narrative, Kay explores important interrelated issues: the assumptions and implications of our punishment culture; the dynamics that can lead people to violence but also back again; the issues and obstacles that victims face on the road to healing; the journey that we as a society must make if we are to end the cycle of violence and victimization. Kay suggests that as victims, as offenders, as a society our salvation lies in re-storying our lives in ways that affirm each of us as valuable individuals in relationship to one another.

Howard Zehr

In an elegantly presented argument, Kay challenges the cultural supports of the crime and punishment cycle in America....[an] important book, which is accessible to undergraduates as well as to the wider public...

Religious Studies Review

... all readers will find compelling content to test their own modes of thinking about how the infliction of pain relates to the achievement of justice.
— R. Zingraff, Meredith College

Choice

In an elegantly presented argument, Kay challenges the cultural supports of the crime and punishment cycle in America....[an] important book, which is accessible to undergraduates as well as to the wider public...

July 2007 Religious Studies Review