ABSTRACT
Most Americans support the death penalty. Their reasons vary, but no justification for capital punishment, other than raw vengeance, demands or even permits warehousing of prisoners under sentence of death. There is neither a mandate nor a justification for harsh and dehumanizing confinement before the prisoner is put to death. Capital punishment, however, does not only involve handing down sentences and then carrying them out. The general public, which sometimes expresses strong feelings on the death penalty and whose views influence policy, may also benefit from a more complete description of the capital punishment process. The death row inmate must achieve the equilibrium with little support or encouragement from others, fellow prisoners, or staff. In the process, he must somehow maintain his dignity and integrity. Psychological dimensions also had to be relatable to certain obvious objective features of the death row environment, particularly its isolation, its security, and its purpose of housing men sentenced to death.
