REINFORCING STATUS QUO

... i hereby sentence you to ...

Evidence of racial discrimination is hardly contestable, but there is also evidence that social class is the basis for discriminatory treatment of capital offenders within the criminal justice system. Poverty and social deprivation, while not confined to colored people has served to create a contemptuous stereotype, based on race, which actually does deprive people of their basic human qualities not only in the eyes of the dominant culture, but also in their own eyes.

Many appear to have tolerated the use of the death penalty against the racially subjugated and the impoverished. In fact the death penalty has been--and is being--used carelessly and arbitrarily to promulgate the cause of the dominant higher echelons of society.

Discriminatory culture still prevails. The consequences of institutionalized racism, apart from its effects on the individuals concerned, means that across society the death penalty has no bearing on the needs of justice. Its effectiveness as a crime deterrent has been disproved, and as retribution its inconsistent application has rendered it invalid. It is purely a means of reinforcing the status quo.

Ref: MD 1996