A quarter of a century later, the claim rings absurdly naïve. The cultural shift is undeniable. The chain gang, pioneered in the southern states, was phased out by 1955. In 1995, Alabama was the first state to reintroduce it: it still exist…States pump up the spectacularity of death, reintroduce the electric chair and firing squads. In an article from 2002, Mona Lynch described how support for the death penalty in the US has ‘especially intensified and “hardened”’, that it is …
Jonathan Simon
other · 2 mentions across 1 reading
In this course
Jonathan Simon appears in the readings as a scholar analyzing how late-twentieth-century American criminal justice has become increasingly theatrical and punitive, particularly around capital punishment and spectacles of state violence. The excerpts reference his work on the resurgence of chain gangs and the deliberate intensification of death penalty visibility, which the course uses to examine how technology, media, and governance intersect in creating what might be called "spectacle architectures" of control. His work helps ground discussions about how contemporary systems don't just punish but perform punishment, making visible the mechanics of state power in ways that reshape public sentiment and social order.
Mentioned in 1 reading
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