ABSTRACT
The death penalty in America today is a peculiar institution for which we lack an adequate sociological account. The institutional arrangements that have grown up there over the last 40 years appear to put the state, law and lethal violence into a new and strange relation. Yet, our standard explanations are borrowed from historical accounts that were generated to explain the role of capital punishment several centuries ago. We have not yet developed analyses that can explain the distinctive forms and functions that define the contemporary institution.
