Deep Divisions Anti-death penalty activist Sister Helen Prejean called for the event to be aired, saying that is the best way to put an end to executions. Supporters of capital punishment are equally divided, between those who maintain that widespread viewing of executions would increase the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime and help heal the emotional wounds of the family of a killer's victims, and those who feel the public is already exposed to too much fictional death in movies and television without being offered the real thing. Executions in the United States have been held behind closed doors since the 1930s, with only a small number of witnesses allowed. Opponents of the death penalty, and even some scholars who say they are at least academically neutral on the matter, say there is a contradiction in the policy. And with recent polls finding that the American public is increasingly ambivalent about the death penalty, some activists feel it is time people got a firsthand look.
Execution is so much a judgment, an action by the community.
It used to be very public, and now it's done behind prison walls. The more people know about the death penalty, the better they're going to be able to judge it. The whole process is carried out in the people's name, and they should know if those acting in their name are doing it carefully and humanely. Paul Leighton, an assistant professor of sociology, anthropology and criminology at Eastern Michigan University who has written extensively about the death penalty and the question of whether executions should be public, said he believes people have the right to see them, but questioned how much of the interest is prurient. Prejean, who became famous after her book Dead Man Walking was made into a movie starring Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, believes that if people saw criminals being put to death, opposition to executions would grow.