Jester J C
Quad Criminol Clin. 1975 Jul-Sep;17(3):367-80.
The Author, following a critical approach focussed on society's response to deviance and on the means of social control which society applies to defend itself from crime and criminals, confutes the thesis according to which the demise of public execution is generally considered as a step in the evolution of the humanitarian ideal of total abolition of the death penalty. By means of a detailed historical analysis of the socioeconomic and political climate which gave rise to the campagning for the demise of public execution in England, the Author gives evidence that such abolition cannot be seen as a linear descendant of a long line of criminal law reforms but rather as a successful manoeuvre to ensure the continuance of the use of the dealth penalty in order to reaffirm the power of the elite which represented itself as the moral guardian of society.
作者遵循一种批判性方法，该方法聚焦于社会对越轨行为的反应以及社会用以保护自身免受犯罪和罪犯侵害的社会控制手段，驳斥了一种观点，即公开处决的废止通常被视为朝着全面废除死刑的人道主义理想演变的一个步骤。通过对导致英国公开处决废止运动的社会经济和政治氛围进行详细的历史分析，作者证明，这种废止不能被视为一系列刑法改革的直接延续，而应被视为确保死刑继续使用的一次成功策略，目的是重申将自身表现为社会道德守护者的精英阶层的权力。
