Disenfranchised Grief and Nonfinite Loss as Experienced by the Families of Death Row Inmates

2007 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 281-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra J. Jones ◽  
Elizabeth Beck
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Death And Dying ◽  
Family Members ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grief And Loss ◽  
Disenfranchised Grief ◽  
Death Row ◽  
Loved One ◽  
Death Row Inmates

The families of death row inmates experience grief and loss issues that have been neglected by scholars and clinicians alike. The issues found in this population are unique and require our understanding. The present study uses the concepts of disenfranchised grief and nonfinite loss to uncover the pain experienced by the children and other family members who have a loved one on death row. Kenneth Doka's (1989) concept of disenfranchised grief is utilized to bring attention to the ways in which the circumstances surrounding an execution leave the family members of those condemned to death outside of the “grieving rules” that exist in the United States. Family members are disenfranchised from their grief, as society does not socially validate their pain. The loss that they feel is also nonfinite (Bruce & Schultz, 2001) in that it is continuous and denies the families all of the hopes, dreams, and expectations that they had for their loved one who now sits on death row. The qualitative interview method was utilized by the authors of this study to gather data from 26 family members of death row inmates who are incarcerated along the East Coast of the United States. The reactions of this group of family members are varied and complex, yet they include the following common responses: social isolation due to stigma and their own feelings of criminalization, intensified family conflict between family members who grieve differently from one another, diminished self-esteem, shame, diffused and specific feelings of guilt, and a chronic state of despair. This study explores virtually untapped terrain. An examination of the microlevel effects of the death penalty on families provides insight in to the area of death and dying, especially as it is related to disenfranchised loss and nonfinite grief. In addition, this study provides insight into the death penalty and its effects.

In Their Own Words

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maranda A. Upton ◽  
Tabitha M. Carwile ◽  
Kristina S. Brown
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Common Theme ◽  
Death Row ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Death Row Inmates

Last statements have been a common practice as part of capital punishment as far back as the 1300s in Europe. In the United States, the first execution occurred in 1608, and currently, 32 states have the death penalty. In 1991, Missouri integrated death row inmates into the general prison population, which makes this population unique compared with other death row populations across the United States. This article is a qualitative study on the themes found in the last statements of 46 capitally punished inmates in Missouri from 1995 to 2011. The purpose of this study was to determine if capital punishment inmates being housed in the general population had an impact on an inmate’s last statement prior to execution. Three domains emerged from these last statements: life, death, and execution. The most common theme identified was love while the least common theme was acceptance. The themes found in this research were consistent with previous studies which looked at inmates executed in Texas where inmates sentenced to capital punishment are separated from the general prison population. Implications, limitations, and future research areas are discussed.

Disenfranchised Grief and Families’ Experiences of Death After Police Contact in the United States

2019 ◽  
pp. 003022281984642
Author(s):  
David Baker ◽  
Dana Norris ◽  
Veroniki Cherneva
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Disenfranchised Grief ◽  
Loved One ◽  
White Families ◽  
Grieving Process ◽  
Police Contact ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Semistructured Interviews

This article examines the experiences of family members when a loved one dies after police contact in the United States. It uses qualitative data from semistructured interviews with the bereaved families of 43 U.S. citizens who died after police contact and considers their experiences as covictims of homicide. It examines how they experience grief in the aftermath of such a death and considers Doka’s concept of disenfranchised grief in evaluating how social norms affect their grieving process. It argues that individuals affected by deaths after police contact are often unable to grieve in a way that is socially legitimized. The article finds that disenfranchised grief has a racial dimension with regard to deaths after police contact with non-White families being deeply affected by it due to their position within society, the context in which their loved one died, and in terms of how the deceased was socially constructed.

scholarly journals Protecting the Right to Effective Assistance of Capital Postconviction Counsel: The Scope of the Constitutional Obligation to Monitor Counsel Performance

2005 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Celestine Richards McConville
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
The United States ◽  
Eyewitness Testimony ◽  
False Confessions ◽  
Death Row ◽  
Capital Cases ◽  
The Right

It is no secret that capital cases in the United States are far from error free. According to a recent study, the two most common errors in capital cases are “egregiously incompetent defense lawyering” and “prosecutorial suppression of evidence that the defendant is innocent or does not deserve the death penalty.” Other errors include inaccurate eyewitness testimony, perjured testimony, and false confessions, just to name a few. And, since 1973, no fewer than 117 capital inmates have been released from death row because errors such as these camouflaged their innocence.

The Death Penalty in the 21st Century

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel LaChance
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Fear Of Crime ◽  
Public Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Death Row ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Death Row Inmates

The dawn of the 21st century marked a turning point in the history of the American death penalty. Politically, the death penalty seemed vulnerable. A wave of abolitionism not seen since the Progressive Era took hold in the 2000s, as six states abandoned the death penalty, and governors in five others instituted moratoria, promising to use their executive power to stay all executions while they remained in office. While the Supreme Court remained committed to the constitutionality of the death penalty, it slowly chipped away at it in a series of decisions that narrowed the range of persons whom the state could execute. Public support for the death penalty, already in decline during the late 1990s, continued to fall in the 21st century. A number of factors depressed support for the death penalty to levels not seen since the early 1970s: a decline in violent crime and fear of crime; highly publicized DNA-based exonerations of death-row inmates; and wariness of the cost of maintaining the death penalty, particularly during the great recession of the late 2000s. The use of the death penalty was declining as well. The expansion of life without parole as an alternative punishment in the 1990s and 2000s gave juries in some states harsh alternatives to death sentences that they did not previously have. Longer-term changes to the judicial and penal administration of the death, meanwhile, continued to make the path between conviction and execution longer and more difficult for state officials to traverse. Most offenders sentenced to death since the 1970s were not (or have not yet been) put to death, and the average wait on death row for those who have been executed has grown to over a decade and a half. Growing problems with the practice of lethal injection, meanwhile, have posed new problems for states seeking to execute capital defendants in the 2000s, producing new legal battles and bringing executions nationwide to a temporary halt in 2007–2008. The 2016 election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency of the United States, however, may portend a slowing or reversing Americans’ 21st-century turn away from the death penalty.

Children of the Condemned: Grieving the Loss of a Father to Death Row

2008 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Beck ◽  
Sandra J. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Death And Dying ◽  
Death Sentence ◽  
Disenfranchised Grief ◽  
Incarcerated Parents ◽  
Death Row ◽  
Grieving Process ◽  
Grief Process ◽  
Death Row Inmates ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Children's Grief

This article explores the effects of a death sentence and execution on the children of the accused. Insight into the unique bereavement of this population is provided, while contributing to the literature on death and dying. The experience of losing a father to death row and eventual execution is compared to the wider population of children with incarcerated parents and it is determined that children of death row inmates contend with a much more complicated grief process, one that has gone largely unstudied. This article contains a brief discussion of disenfranchised grief and nonfinite loss, two theories that, we argue, shape the children's grief process. The results section of the article uses qualitative data gathered from 19 children to explore the role that nonfinite loss and disenfranchised grief share in the nature of their bereavement. Our discussion focuses on the impact of stigma and violence on the grieving process. Following a discussion of the unique challenges confronting the children of death row inmates is a discussion of the implications that their experience has for practice.

Substance-Related Disorders

2019 ◽  
pp. 17-22
Author(s):  
Dennis C. Daley ◽  
Antoine Douaihy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Significant Others ◽  
The United States ◽  
Psychotic Symptoms ◽  
Loved One ◽  
Substance Related Disorders

Substance-induced disorders include intoxication, withdrawal, and other substance- or medication-induced mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, or psychotic symptoms that are associated with use of specific types of substances. When the substances are stopped, the symptoms get better or go away altogether. SUDs include disorders related to use of alcohol, caffeine, cannabis, hallucinogens, inhalants, opioids, sedatives, hypnotics or anxiolytics, stimulants, tobacco, and other (or unknown) substances. Eleven criteria are listed for diagnosis of an SUD. Statistics on SUDs in the United States are given. Advice is offered for family members and significant others who have a loved one with an SUD.

scholarly journals Mercy towards decarceration: Examining the legal constraints on early release from prison

Incarceration ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 263266632097780
Author(s):  
Alexandra Cox ◽  
Dwayne Betts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Family Members ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Release ◽  
The Us ◽  
Legal Constraints ◽  
Release From Prison

There are close to seven million people under correctional supervision in the United States, both in prison and in the community. The US criminal justice system is widely regarded as an inherently unmerciful institution by scholars and policymakers but also by people who have spent time in prison and their family members; it is deeply punitive, racist, expansive and damaging in its reach. In this article, we probe the meanings of mercy for the institution of parole.

Shame and blame: Secondary stigma among families of convicted sex offenders

2021 ◽  
pp. 174889582110173
Author(s):  
Douglas Evans ◽  
Adam Trahan ◽  
Kaleigh Laird
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Sex Offenders ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Sex Offender ◽  
Family Members ◽  
The United States ◽  
Formerly Incarcerated ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Sex Offender Registry

The detriment of incarceration experienced by the formerly incarcerated has been increasingly explored in the literature on reentry. A tangential but equally concerning issue that has recently received more research attention is the effect on family members of the incarcerated. The stigma of a criminal conviction is most apparent among families of convicted sex offenders, who experience consequences parallel to those of their convicted relative. Drawing from interviews with 30 individuals with a family member incarcerated for a sex offence in the United States, this study explores manifestations of stigma due to familial association. The findings suggest that families face negative treatment from social networks and criminal justice officials, engage in self-blame and that the media’s control over the narrative exacerbates family members’ experiences. Given the pervasiveness of criminal justice system contact, the rapid growth of the sex offender registry in the United States, and the millions of family members peripherally affected by one or both, justice system reforms are needed to ensure that family members are shielded from the harms of incarceration and registration.

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