Honor on Death Row

Judy Eaton

doi:10.1177/2158244014529777

Abstract

The Southern United States is described as having a culture of honor, an argument that has been used to explain higher crime rates in the Southern United States than in the rest of the country. This research explored whether the combination of honor-related violence and traditional southern politeness norms is related to regional differences in the degree of remorse expressed by those who have committed violent crimes. It was proposed that different social norms regarding politeness and apologies in the Southern United States would be reflected in the narratives provided by offenders. The data came from the final statements that offenders on death row made before they were executed. Results showed that, compared with offenders executed in the non-Southern United States, offenders executed in the South more often apologized for their crimes in their final statements, but they were not necessarily more remorseful.

Highlights

This is a blow to everything I believe in . . . I don’t believe in hitting women
A logistic regression was performed with region (South; non-South) as the response variable and last statement, the type of crime committed, whether the victim was known to the offender or not, the number of victims, whether members of the victim’s family were present at the execution, and the length of time the offender spent on death row before being executed as the explanatory variables
None of the explanatory variables was significant except for the length of time the offender spent on death row before being executed, β = −.056, p = .03, odds ratio =

Summary

Introduction

This is a blow to everything I believe in . . . I don’t believe in hitting women. But for me to turn around and rape and murder two women . . . The point is I did it. Gibbs notes the disconnect between his actions and his view of himself as a southern “country gentleman” (Carson, 2000) In his final statement before being executed, Gibbs apologized to his victim’s family. In those regions of the United States that support the death penalty, offenders who are about to be executed are permitted to make a final statement in front of a group of witnesses, which may include members of their family and their victim’s family These narratives, which are usually made available to the public, provide a unique opportunity to examine remorse for an extreme, usually unambiguous event (capital murder) in a situation where the transgressor arguably has nothing left to lose. When most of the factors that might influence an apology for a criminal transgression (e.g., the threat of harsher punishment or a hope for leniency, the threat of retaliation) are stripped away, is southern politeness still apparent in offenders from the U.S South? This research examines the use of apologies in this national sample to SAGE Open discover if there is a distinct pattern of remorse in the Southern honor states

Methods

Results

Conclusion