Utah has decided to bring back the firing squad. This decision was motivated by a shortage of lethal injection drugs, whose European manufacturers refuse to sell them to U.S. prison officials for the executions.
It’s no surprise that European drug companies aren’t on board with the whole execution thing: the only country in Europe still executing people is Belarus (2 people were executed in Europe last year). In contrast, the only countries that use the death penalty more than the U.S. are Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and China. Woof.
The death penalty is on the decline nationwide; 2014 had the smallest number of execution in 20 years with 39 people executed, and fewer death sentences were handed down as well. Changing public sentiment may be guiding the shift. One widely shared concern relates to the alarming rate of false convictions: 150 people on death row have been exonerated nationwide, and the National Academy of Sciences estimates that 1 in 25 death row inmates are likely innocent.
But some experts believe that the decline is largely due to unavailability of lethal injection drugs, which became a significant issue for prison officials in 2011 when the European Commission blocked exports of all known lethal injection drugs with the explicit purpose of “abolishing the death penalty worldwide.”
So what to think about Utah’s archaic “solution” to the shortage? Sister Helen Prejean, human rights leader and anti-death penalty activist, thinks it’s a good thing. “I think the firing squad is more honest in a way and transparent, that you’re actually killing a person,” she opined. “You’re going to see the blood dripping from the chair. I think, in a way, it’s more transparent. I think it’s going to help end it quicker.”
I agree that lethal injection seems to put an incongruously “humane” face on killing a person. But I worry that we’ve simply gone too far down the road of dehumanization to be much moved by watching someone get shot to death and bleed onto the floor.
Corrections officers, prison administrators, and even prison medical personnel have witnessed (and caused) incredible pain and suffering, both physical and mental, to people in their custody and dismissed it as faked, provoked, or deserved. A couple of weeks ago Missouri executed a 74-year-old man with severe brain damage for goodness’ sake. And, like every other problem associated with the criminal justice system, this is some racist shit: death sentences are more likely to be given to Black offenders, and they’re most likely when the victim was white.
Like Sister Prejean, I hope that this alarming move on Utah’s part will serve as a well-needed wake up call, but until we recognize the people we’re killing as people, I’m skeptical that society will be “up in arms” about it.
He told me that he’s been nearby when it’s been sprayed before, and even just being close is terrible. “I coughed so hard blood came up,” he said. Hearing this description, and watching guard after guard show up to get in gear, I wonder how much of the extreme level of security we’re seeing can be attributed to real risk faced by officers. Certainly there is some risk – anyone incarcerated at Riker’s will tell you it’s a dangerous place for prisoners – but to send in twenty or more guards, with clubs and bear spray, I would think they ought to have a good reason. So I looked for some numbers.
The really low rate of death among correctional officers is probably due in part to the extremely high level of security employed, but it comes at the price of a widespread dismissal of the humanity of the people who are incarcerated (literally using products designed to keep vicious animals at bay). This is not the product of individual failings among COs, nor is the policing statistic a reflection of individual assholes in police departments, nor is the sentencing statistic a product of bad prosecutors personally bent on creating more punitive systems. These are symptoms of a fundamental shift in the way that we understand people involved with the criminal justice system, and more generally people of color and poor people in our society. This is the new face of prejudice that Michelle Alexander was describing in her blockbuster critique of our criminal justice system, 
One of the defining features of the U.S. prison population is how disproportionately black and brown it is. The more the word gets out about that, the better, right?
People who demand a trial by jury experience a longer waiting and trial period, and some probably do receive harsher sentences than the plea bargain would have offered. But many do not. And if the number of people who exercised their sixth amendment rights merely doubled, it would be enough to bring the current system to a crashing halt and require our country to seriously consider the way we lock people up.
This seemed like a good way to get people rethinking responses to crime. I figured that people would be more interested in thinking creatively and addressing individual situations if they had an investment in what happened to the offender. I also figured that more people would want to know (and deal with) 
In a nutshell, the strict father model works like this: a strong male figure makes the rules, punishes anyone who disobeys, and doesn’t engage in dialogue or ask permission for jack. Individual success and competition is viewed as the hallmark of national progress. Anyone who threatens that model, tries to help the “bad” children who deserve their lot in life for failing to make a lot of money and achieve traditional success, is actually hurting themselves and everyone else by getting in the way of discipline, order, and morality. Within this framework, things like free drug treatment programs, welfare, affirmative action, etc. are detrimental to the natural development and success of the nation’s “children” (literal and figurative), who will actually learn and thrive through punishment, not support.
The vast majority of young people
Abolish Prisons 