Or is it just another metaphor to fool the people into thinking that something important is happening. There's no coverage for the creation of the environment that makes murder more likely. William Bonin was sodomized and abandoned as a child. He went to Vietnam where he was trained to kill people. He learned how to control peoplehe even said that.
Executions occur, first of all, to make the politicians look good.
They don't have to raise taxes to do it, and they're killing people that nobody likes. They can claim that their predecessors didn't kill enough people and that the judges are weak-kneed. In California, for example, since January 1983, there has been a series of very right-wing governors. What it really is about is politics at the cheapest leveland validation of the state. If the state can execute, if it can kill, then the state has tremendous power.