Leymon 9
disproportionately higher rates; black males are particularly more likely to be executed (Clarke, 1998;
Harris, 1988, Jacobs et al., 2005; Messner et al., 2005). A number of competing theories have attempted
to explain this disparity. Popular in early research, Durkheim’s theory of legal mechanisms of social
control gained considerable initial support. This theory suggests that as legal forms of social control gain
acceptance, extra-legal controls such as lynching will decrease. This may help to explain why the South
has significantly higher rates of imprisonment. But empirical testing of this theory has produced mixed
results, offering both support and considerable doubt concerning its validity (Clarke, 1998; Jacobs and
Carmichael, 2001). Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1967) suggest an alternative theory that the South’s higher
rates of imprisonment are a result of a subculture of violence in the south.
1
Both in the South and in other parts of the nation, state governments have responded to the
perception that violent crime is on the rise and have begun to devise various social policies to combat this
alleged rise. Across most political perspectives and clearly across the political ideology of the two
dominant political parties, a “get tough on crime” perspective prevails. Specific criminal and public
policy legislation has increased the overall punitiveness of sentences, causing a significant portion of the
nearly 500% increase in imprisonment over the period of time covered in this study. “Fixed” sentencing
reforms were devised and implemented during this period and it has been theorized that these reforms
may exacerbate the problem of prison growth (Dalessio and Stolzenberg, 1995; Kruttschnitt, 2005) and
racial disparities in prison. Though probable, this contention has not been fully substantiated. Analysis in
this study will attempt to assess their possible impact.
Several researchers, however, have pointed out that while the discretion may have been removed
from the judge’s hands; discretion, which could result in discrimination, remains in the process (Brewer,
Beckett, and Holt, 1981; Kempf-Leonard and Simple, 2001). Instead, discrimination may have been
shifted from the hands of the judge to the hands of the prosecutor. By limiting the power of judges,
1
Wolfgang and Ferracuti’s (1967) theory is often referred to as the Subculture of Violence. They argue that the South has
a cultural and societal structure that supports violence. They suggest that this pervasive ethos cuts across generations,
age, class and sex in a way that violence becomes a part of being a Southern woman or man and that the South has come
to accept violence as a natural part of life. It can be shown that homicide and violent crime rates are significantly higher
in the South (Harries 1988; Messner et al. 2005), suggesting that high imprisonment rates and execution in the South are
a direct result of significantly higher rates of violence.
Convention