Prison Courtyard, by Vincent van Gogh, 1890. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia.

Prison Courtyard, by Vincent van Gogh, 1890. The Pushkin Museum of Fine Art, Moscow, Russia.

Crimes & Punishments

Volume II, Number 2 | spring 2009

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Soldiers and police establishing line at door of the Morgan Bank after anti-capitalist Wall Street bombing, September 16, 1920.

Preamble

Crime Scenes

By Lewis H. Lapham

The American fondness for the dressing up of crime in the costumes of romance is an amusement priced at too high a cost.

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Original death chamber at the Red Hat Cell Block, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, 2010. Photograph by Lee Honeycutt.

Staking a Life

By Christopher Hitchens

Why is the United States so wedded to the infliction of the death penalty?

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Map

Spider Men

The world’s most-wanted criminals.

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1693 | London

Child Care

Sparing the rod.More

1909 | Battersea

Empaneling a Jury

G.K. Chesterton considers morality. More

1890 | Auburn

Rigor of Death

The invention of the electric chair. More

Charts & Graphs

Divine Justice

God’s punishments as recorded in the Old Testament.

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Painted portrait of English philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

Photograph of American writer William S. Burroughs.

English novelist, essayist, and critic George Orwell.

Frontispiece for 1612-13 King James Bible.

A crowded police court docket is the surest sign that trade is brisk and money plenty.

—Mark Twain, 1872

Black and white photograph of Friedrich Nietzsche with a huge mustache.

American lawyer Clarence Darrow.

Friedrich Nietzsche & Clarence Darrow

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