Book Review: Allen, H. W. & Clubb, J. M. (2008). Race, Class, and the Death Penalty: Capital Punishment in American History. Albany: State hosted at University of New York Press. ix, 239 pp

DOI10.1177/0734016808326099
Date01 December 2009
Published date01 December 2009
Subject MatterArticles
Allen, H. W. & Clubb, J. M. (2008). Race, Class, and the Death Penalty:
Capital Punishment in American History. Albany: State hosted at University of New
York Press. ix, 239 pp.
DOI: 10.1177/0734016808326099
Race, Class, and the Death Penalty is primarily a descriptive analysis of executions and, to a les-
ser extent, lynchings in American history between 1608 and 1945. For their data, the authors,
Howard W. Allen, professor emeritus of history at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and
Jerome M. Clubb, research scientist and professor emeritus of history at the University of Michigan,
draw extensively on the Espy file, the most comprehensive source of legal executions in American
history. They also use a variety of other primary and secondary sources to corroborate and qualify the
Espy data and to augment their scholarly treatment of the subject. Their goal, as stated in their intro-
duction, is to address four (really five) questions: (a) How frequently has the death penalty been
used, and how has the frequency of use changed? (b) Where was the death penalty used most fre-
quently? (c) What were the offenses charged? (d) What were the characteristics of the executed?
As noted, they also consider lynchings and their relationship to legal executions and, in their last
chapter, provide an interesting control theory for the trends they report.
The book will appeal mostly to death penalty scholars. Other readers are likely to find as tedious
the detailed descriptions of data, which are presented in numerous figures and tables and comprise
the bulk of the book. That said, important nuggets of insight can be found sprinkled among the pages.
For example, a point made repeatedly by the authors is that although the sheer numbers of executions
have tended to increase over the period of study, the rate of executions, that is, the number of execu-
tions in relation to population, has actually declined (and continues to decline). Thus, although it is
true that more executions were conducted in the 1930s (1,676) than in the entire 1600s (162) and
1700s (1,391), for instance, the rate of executions was significantly higher in the 1600s and 1700s
than in the 1930s because the population was so much smaller in the 1600s and 1700s than in the
1930s. The authors claim, ‘‘In the 1930s and 1940s rates of execution per 100,000 population were
at the lowest level in the history of the nation up until that time’’ (p. 168). A related point is that the
colonial execution rate was roughly comparable to the English execution rate of the same time
period, even though England had dozens more capital crimes than the colonies and, based on sheer
numbers, executed many more people. Again, population size differences account for the finding.
Much of the analysis is devoted to documenting regional, racial, and ethnic disparities. The
authors provide empirical verification that most of those legally executed between 1608 and 1945
were minority group members, especially African Americans. Almost 90% of the legal executions
of African Americans happened in the South and border states (states in which slavery was legal in
1860). Similarly, more than 90% of the lynchings of African Americans were in the South or Border
states. In all regions and during all time periods, African Americans were executed at rates that far
exceeded White execution rates. Interestingly, in some time periods, African Americans were exe-
cuted at higher rates in the Northeast and Western United States than in the South and border states.
Among problems with the book is its title: Race, Class, and the Death Penalty. There is almost no
discussion of class and the death penalty. Three pages of a subsection in chapter 7 describe the socio-
economic status of those executed, with socioeconomic status defined primarily by occupational sta-
tus. The authors conclude with the familiar observation that those executed between 1608 and 1945
were ‘‘a group disproportionately composed of the poor, those without skills, and marginal people
who existed on the fringes of established society’’ (p. 152). Perhaps a better title would have been
Execution and Lynching Patterns in America, 1608-1945. By adding ‘‘Class’’ in the title, the authors
promise more than they deliver.
500 International Criminal Justice Review

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