Introduction Imagine if you will, a boy as young as four years old who develops a fascination with collecting animal bones in a bucket and crushing them because he likes the way they sound as they break. This behavior progresses to the collection of whole dead animal carcasses, then dissecting and processing them chemically, using corrosive acids. As the boy enters adulthood, his fascination with anatomy takes a sinister turn, and he develops an affinity for human anatomy which eventually earns him a place in history as one of the most notorious serial killers, after he is convicted of torturing, murdering, dismembering, cannibalizing, and performing acts of necrophilia on his victims. This person is Jeffrey Dahmer (Silva, Ferrari, & Leong,
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Because prisons were not in existence until the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, societies dealt with repeat offenders and those who posed a threat to public safety and social order by administering various forms of capital punishment. While early colonial laws did not mimic those of the extreme English laws where some 200 crimes qualified for the death penalty, the colonies believed that crimes such as murder, rape, sodomy, adultery, and some property crimes were worthy of death (Acker, 2003). In colonial times, racial discrimination was extremely prevalent. Black slaves were subject to execution for attempted murder and attempted rape, whereas a white person might only be sentenced to three years in prison. The abolition of racial discrimination at sentencing began with the northern states with the country’s preoccupation with the American Civil War, but the southern states would not follow suit for some time. Still, the execution of black defendants was severely disproportionate to their population. According to Banner (2002, p. 230), “The death penalty was a means of racial
Because prisons were not in existence until the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, societies dealt with repeat offenders and those who posed a threat to public safety and social order by administering various forms of capital punishment. While early colonial laws did not mimic those of the extreme English laws where some 200 crimes qualified for the death penalty, the colonies believed that crimes such as murder, rape, sodomy, adultery, and some property crimes were worthy of death (Acker, 2003). In colonial times, racial discrimination was extremely prevalent. Black slaves were subject to execution for attempted murder and attempted rape, whereas a white person might only be sentenced to three years in prison. The abolition of racial discrimination at sentencing began with the northern states with the country’s preoccupation with the American Civil War, but the southern states would not follow suit for some time. Still, the execution of black defendants was severely disproportionate to their population. According to Banner (2002, p. 230), “The death penalty was a means of racial