Full Description
A first-hand account of the death penalty's wholly destructive nature.
In Witness, Lyle C. May offers a scathing critique of shifts in sentencing laws, prison policies that ensure recidivism, and classic "tough on crime" views that don't make society safer or prevent crime. These insightful and analytical essays explore capital punishment, life imprisonment, prison education, prison journalism, as well as what activism from inside looks like on the road toward abolishing the carceral state.
No outside journalist can adequately report what happens inside death row or what it is like to live through thirty-three executions of people you know. May's grounded writings in Witness challenge the myths, misconceptions, and misinformation about the criminal legal system and death in prison, guiding readers on a journey through North Carolina's congregate death row, where the author has spent over twenty years of his life.
With a foreword by activist, lawyer, and professor Danielle Purifoy, and drawing on the work of Angela Y. Davis, Mariame Kaba, and other abolitionist scholars, Witness shows there is more to life under the sentence of death than what is portrayed in crime dramas or mass media. Lyle C. May's life, journalism, and activism are a guidebook to abolitionism in practice.
Contents
Section A—State of Violence: Capital Punishment and Death Row
On Death Row, Eating to Live
A Confirmation of Faith
Secrecy and the Death Penalty
Beyond the wall
Death Row Phenomenon
Jesus as a Man on Death Row
Learning to Die
Section B—Carceral State: Life imprisonment
Life Without Parole is a Silent Execution
A Tale of Two Henrys
Paroling Michael Pinch
Death by Incarceration
Mob Mentality and Politics: The viral space where bad laws are made
Section C—Culture of Control: Higher Education and Prison Journalism
Draconian Ideals
Obstructing Reform
Resilience and Resistance
Freeing the Press in Prison
Prison Journalism: Fighting the Narrative of Control
NC Innocence Inquiry Commission Does Not Save Every Innocent of Death Row
Section D—Witness: Speaking Out
The Digital Abolitionist Twitter Feed: Lisa Montgomery
Science vs. Anti-Intellectualism and the Death Penalty
Inside the Tinderbox: COVID-19 in Prison
The Economics of Capital Punishment
Qualified Immunity
When the Thermometer Breaks
The Myth of Deterrence
No Man Left Behind
Section E. Activism
Front Line Snapshots of Activism
On Retaliation against Incarcerated Writers
The Hole: To Live Means to Resist
The Fury of Our Resistance
