Execution By Family

Across many parts of the world, violence inflicted in the name of family honor is attracting an increasing amount of attention. Family honor violence, otherwise known as honor-based violence, is physical force inflicted primarily on women for conduct defined as dishonorable. This book explores these conflicts of honor, how they are triggered, how they are handled, and why some lead to death. Drawing on a range of case studies and employing Donald Black’s concept of social geometry, Execution by Family incorporates and goes beyond patriarchy, culture, and kinship to develop a unified theory of family honor violence. It discusses the "honor belt," a series of countries stretching from north Africa to southeast Asia, in which similar forms of inequality, patriarchy, group authority, and gerontocracy are prevalent and how, within the confines of this inequality, honor violence flourishes. Reviewing survey data and pointing to a multi-pronged, cross-national social movement, the book also discusses the future of honor-based violence. Given the growing awareness of family honor violence, Execution by Family will be of interest to anybody concerned with family conflict, violence, crime, and popular morality. It will be invaluable reading for academics and students in the fields of criminology, criminal justice, sociology, social psychology, and anthropology.

Robert Meeropol was six years old in 1953 when his parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were executed after being convicted of Conspiracy to Commit Espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union at the height of the McCarthy era. Just before they were put to death, the Rosenbergs wrote a letter to their two sons saying they were "secure in the knowledge that others would carry on after them." The Rosenbergs left their young sons a legacy that was both a burden and a gift, as well as an aching emotional void. Robert Meeropol grew up torn between the need to pursue his political values and his intense fear that personal exposure might subject him and his family to violence or even death. An Execution in the Family details Robert Meeropol's political odyssey from being the Rosenbergs' son to becoming a prominent political activist in his own right, and it chronicles a very personal journey of self-discovery. This is the story of how he tried to balance a strong desire to live a normal life and raise a family with a growing need to create something useful out of his childhood nightmare. It is also a poignant account of how, at age forty-three, he finally found a way to honor his parents and be true to himself.

"Sharp’s book reemphasizes the tremendous costs of maintaining the death penalty—costs to real people and real families that ripple throughout generations to come."—Saundra D. Westervelt, author of Shifting the Blame: How Victimization Became a Criminal Defense "Everyone concerned with the effects of capital punishment must have this book."—Margaret Vandiver, professor, department of criminology and criminal justice, University of Memphis Murderers, particularly those sentenced to death, are considered by most to be unusually heinous, often sub-human, and entirely different from the rest of us. In Hidden Victims, sociologist Susan F. Sharp challenges this culturally ingrained perspective by reminding us that those individuals facing a death sentence, in addition to being murderers, are brothers or sisters, mothers or fathers, daughters or sons, relatives or friends. Through a series of vivid and in-depth interviews with families of the accused, she demonstrates how the exceptionally severe way in which we view those on death row trickles down to those with whom they are closely connected. Sharp shows how family members and friends—in effect, the indirect victims of the initial crime—experience a profoundly complicated and socially isolating grief process. Departing from a humanist perspective from which most accounts of victims are told, Sharp makes her case from a sociological standpoint that draws out the parallel experiences and coping mechanisms of these individuals. Chapters focus on responses to sentencing, the particular structure of grieving faced by this population, execution, aftermath, wrongful conviction, family formation after conviction, and the complex situation of individuals related to both the killer and the victim. Powerful, poignant, and intelligently written, Hidden Victims challenges all of us—regardless of which side of the death penalty you are on—to understand the economic, social, and psychological repercussions that shape the lives of the often forgotten families of death row inmates.

The press called Martin's actions a "crime spree." Already convicted of armed robbery, Martin was facing the death penalty. In less than two weeks the jury would decide his fate. Terrified that his son would be sentenced to die, Phillip did the only thing he felt he could do: in an act of faith and desperation in his garage with the car exhaust running, Phillip made the consummate sacrifice to spare his son the ultimate punishment. Ironically, his suicide presented Martin's with another chance at life; the jury, moved by Martin's loss, spared his life. Phillip's story-like those of the other parents, siblings, children, and cousins chronicled in this book-vividly illustrates the precarious position family members of capital offenders occupy in the criminal justice system. At once outsiders and victims, they live in the shadow of death, crushed by trauma, grief, and helplessness. In this penetrating account of guilt and innocence, shame and triumph, devastating loss and ultimate redemption, the voices of these family members add a new dimension to debates about capital punishment and how communities can prevent and address crime. Restorative justice theory, which views violent crime as an extreme violation of relationships; searches for ways to hold offenders accountable; and meets the needs of victims and communities torn apart by the crime, organizes these narratives and integrates offenders' families into the process of transforming conflict and promoting justice and healing for all. What emerges from hundreds of hours' worth of in-depth interviews with family members of offenders and victims, legal teams, and leaders in the abolition and restorative justice movements is a vision of justice strongly rooted in the social fabric of communities. Showing that forgiveness and recovery are possible in the wake of even the most heinous crimes, while holding victims' stories sacred, this eye-opening book bridges the pain of living in the shadow of death with the possibility of a reparative form of justice. Anyone working with victims, offenders, and their families-from lawyers and social workers to mediators and activists-will find this riveting work indispensable to their efforts.

The death penalty in classical Judaism has been a highly politicized subject in modern scholarship. Enlightenment attacks on the Talmud's legitimacy led scholars to use the Talmud's criminal law as evidence for its elevated morals. But even more pressing was the need to prove Jews' innocence of the charge of killing Christ. The reconstruction of a just Jewish death penalty was a defense against the accusation that a corrupt Jewish court was responsible for the death of Christ. In Execution and Invention, Beth A. Berkowitz tells the story of modern scholarship on the ancient rabbinic death penalty and offers a fresh perspective using the approaches of ritual studies, cultural criticism, and talmudic source criticism. Against the scholarly consensus, Berkowitz argues that the early Rabbis used the rabbinic laws of the death penalty to establish their power in the wake of the destruction of the Temple. Following recent currents in historiography, Berkowitz sees the Rabbis as an embattled, almost invisible sect within second-century Judaism. The function of their death penalty laws, Berkowitz contends, was to create a complex ritual of execution under rabbinic control, thus bolstering rabbinic claims to authority in the context of Roman political and cultural domination. Understanding rabbinic literature to be in dialogue with the Bible, with the variety of ancient Jews, and with Roman imperialism, Berkowitz shows how the Rabbis tried to create an appealing alternative to the Roman, paganized culture of Palestine's Jews. In their death penalty, the Rabbis substituted Rome's power with their own. Early Christians, on the other hand, used death penalty discourse to critique judicial power. But Berkowitz argues that the Christian critique of execution produced new claims to authority as much as the rabbinic embrace. By comparing rabbinic conversations about the death penalty with Christian ones, Berkowitz reveals death penalty discourse as a significant means of creating authority in second-century western religious cultures. Advancing the death penalty discourse as a discourse of power, Berkowitz sheds light on the central relationship between religious and political authority and the severest form of punishment.

The crime and punishment of a juvenile offender

Computer systems have become an integral part of most companies. The newest of these is Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), a technology that provides on-line application software that companies rely on to manage their manufacturing processes. Applying Manufacturing Execution Systems is the book for everyone who has the responsibility of improving their company's manufacturing results. It shows how the current conditions on the plant floor can be optimized to improve production output using an integrated MES. Applying Manufacturing Execution Systems shows how MES benefits all types of manufacturing from discrete item production to process flow production. The concepts discussed are applicable in all production facilities where a number of variables, whether simple or complex, need to be considered in order to optimize production by effectively using the available resources of people, inventory, and equipment. The book emphasizes the application of MES in the real world of manufacturing that includes:

Fornbsp;55 years, generations of the Pierrepoint family served as fearsome hangmen in England. The dynasty began in 1901 with Henry Pierrepoint,nbsp;whonbsp;was followed into the gruesome profession by his brother Thomas, and in time, his eldest son Albert. Between them, they carried out an amazing 900 executions. This book recounts the lives and tales of the Pierrepoint family, their reasons for taking up the profession, and the inside details of the execution cases and the deeds themselves. Insight is shed on the feuds and intense rivalry between fellow hangmen, as well as the notorious cases that kept the family firmly in the spotlight. With extracts from diaries and comments on the family's representation in the media, this book provides a fascinating look at a profession that is long gone, but certainly not forgotten.