Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Visualizing Abolition: Two Graphic Novels And A Critical Approach To Mass Incarceration For The Composition Classroom, Michael Sutcliffe

SANE journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education

This article outlines two graphic novels and an accompanying activity designed to unpack complicated intersections between racism, poverty, and (d)evolving criminal-legal policy. Over 2 million adults are held in U.S. prison facilities, and several million more are under custodial supervision, and it has become clearly unsustainable. In the last decade, there has been a shift in media conversations about criminality, yet only a few suggest decreasing our reliance upon incarceration. In meaningfully different ways, the two novels trace the development of incarceration from its roots in slavery to its contemporary anti-democratic iteration and offer an underpublicized alternative.

Critical and community …

America’S Lethal Dilemma: Legitimating Old Methods Of Execution In An Era Of Abolition, Kyle Ward Letteney

Masters Theses

American capital punishment has been facing new opposition from abroad. In 2011 the European Union (EU) placed an embargo on the export of the primary lethal injection drug, sodium thiopental. Since the 2011 embargo, the 32 American states with the death penalty have been unable to obtain additional quantities of sodium thiopental and have since depleted or nearly depleted their supply, prompting a discussion of alternatives. This study analyzes that discussion. Specifically, the analysis of pro-death penalty rhetoric used by Tennessee state politicians who have recently taken steps to retain the death penalty despite the ongoing controversy surrounding the death …