Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

"Our Existential Death Penalty: Judges, Jurors, and Terror Management"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this new article appealing in the journal titled Law & Psychology Review and available via SSRN.  Here is the abstract: Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker explored the impacts of the subconscious fear of death upon humans.  In recent years, experimental psychologists have conducted studies related to Becker's theories.  This "terror management theory" research has found that human beings become more punitive and hostile toward other groups when they are reminded of their own mortality.  For example, in one study of municipal judges, the judges who were reminded of death set an average bond of $455 in a fictional case, while judges in the control group who were not reminded of their mortality set an average bond of $50 for the same case...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 30, 2009 (boomark / email).