Pursuit of ‘non-stop executions’ causing psychological distress to corrections staff as states urged to widen gap between executions

The relentless pursuit of “non-stop executions” by a rump of US death penalty states is exposing prison staff to extreme levels of psychological and physical stress, according to traumatized corrections officers who are appealing for help.

Though capital punishment is generally on the wane in America, with only five states carrying out executions last year, those states that remain active are showing a renewed determination. In some states, the pace of judicial killings is now so intense that prison guards are kept in an almost permanent state of readiness, with mock executions staged on a rolling basis.

In Oklahoma, officers at the state penitentiary in McAlester, which houses the death chamber, are so stretched by the schedule of 25 executions set in 2022 by the Republican-controlled state that the state’s own attorney general and the head of the prison service have appealed to the courts for a more staggered approach. They have requested that the gap between executions be widened from 60 to 90 days, so far to no avail.

The unprecedented move to try to cool the pace of executions followed a joint letter to the state’s attorney general, Gentner Drummond, from nine former senior corrections officials. They warned that staff were being subjected to “lasting trauma” and a “psychological toll” that included post-traumatic stress disorder, alcohol abuse and distress due to the “non-stop executions”.

  • Riskable@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 months ago

    Any day now a Republican will propose they solve this “bureaucratic inefficiency” by switching to ovens.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      6 months ago

      I’d say don’t give them ideas, but I’m guessing that they’ve already had this idea and are prepping it.

  • Drusas@kbin.run
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    6 months ago

    Turns out regularly murdering people takes a toll on you. Imagine that.

  • Got_Bent@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    6 months ago

    Interesting to see this. I live in Texas and the online comments every time they kill an inmate cause me to envision thousands of pro death penalty guys unzipping when it happens.

    I guess having to face it in person affects the stimulative properties. Who’d a thunk it?

  • DahGangalang@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 months ago

    25 per year (call it one every two weeks?) really doesn’t seem that high, esp with their wording of “non-stop executions”.

    Guess that really speaks to how messed up these execution methods are.

    As I type this, I can’t help but wonder how the mass executions during the French Revolution affected people’s psyche (seems like a well built guillotine would be able to go through closer to 25 executions per day). Anyone have info on that?

    • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      6 months ago

      I mean yes the headline is sensationalized but that still averages to one every 2 weeks, enough to be considered a pretty regular occurrence. Imagine if every other week your work has a power outage that needs a 4-hour manual reset to fix. After working there for a year would you describe it as an every so often problem or “our power is fucked it goes out all the time”?

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      6 months ago

      In those days most people would be considered heavily traumatized by modern standards. The kind of thing that would send you to multi year therapy these days was just a regular Tuesday back then.

      • DahGangalang@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        6 months ago

        And I would argue that this is different than if a soldier kills someone.

        Like, when you kill as a soldier, generally the other person is trying to kill you (or you can at least tell yourself that afterwards. When you’re an executioner…well let’s just say they are known for wearing hoods for a reason.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      6 months ago

      As I type this, I can’t help but wonder how the mass executions during the French Revolution affected people’s psyche

      I don’t know if it affected their psyche, but seeing old ladies knitting in front of a guillotine and being completely unflinching about getting coated with blood gushing out of the neck that just had a head severed from it would freak me the fuck out.

  • anarkatten@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    mock executions staged on a rolling basis.

    I feel like a sweet summer child, but what are mock executions and probably more importantly, why are mock executions? Edit: looked it up. Holy shit. Just unreal.

  • cosmicrookie@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    6 months ago

    It wouldn’t surprise me if somebody came up with the idea to charge spectators to perform the executions instead. Could Bezos or Elon be in on this?

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        6 months ago

        They wouldn’t call it an original idea on its own, they’d pitch it as ‘The Running Man but with AI’ and call that an original idea.

  • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    6 months ago

    Does anyone know if there exists a list of what crimes/cases lead to executions?

    Would be curious to see the specific data that leads to murder, sorry, “lawful execution”

  • unreasonabro@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    6 months ago

    Sure, let’s just literally make it a robot’s job to kill people, that’s so fuckin murican I can not even

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    6 months ago

    Trump…automate the process! I automated many many things. Some say the best automation we have never seen. One time a big corrections officer came to me with a teary in his eyes. He asked if we could have a conveyor belt prison going into a gas section so he didn’t have to drag the criminals all by himself.