A&E interviewed seven Death Row inmates that were housed in a penitentiary in Missouri. In the documentary, the inmates interviewed share with the audience, their feelings about being incarcerated and serving a Death Row sentence. In Missouri, death penalty is by lethal injection. Three different chemicals are injected into the inmate, one after the other, and about a minute after the third injection the doctor pronounces the inmate dead.
The civilian role of a person is that of going to work, or school living life on a day to day basis. As a civilian, daily routines are followed such as eating and sleeping. Upon entering the prison world, an inmate's life completely changes. They are in a world where they have no say in how they perform their daily routines. They are told when to wake up, eat, sleep and spend their "free" time. The change is drastic and immediate, there is no gradual process, it happens as soon as they enter the "pearly" gates of prison. Inmates are stripped of their dignity. They are told what to do, when to do it and how to do it. They no longer have minds of their own. .
The issue of "self abuse" comes into play because a majority of the Death Row inmates have histories of extensive drug use. Drugs are a disease that invades the body and mind of a person. Drugs make the body susceptible to disease and sickness. These inmates relied on drugs heavily while in their civilian roles and now in their role as an inmate they are weaned away but suffer the consequences of their habit. Though the habit is gone they are reminded daily with scars of the torture they put themselves through.
Capital punishment feeds the cycle of violence in society by pandering to a lust for revenge. It brutalizes us, and deadens our sensitivities to the precious nature of every single human life. There is no clear empirical evidence to support the contention that capital punishment has any deterrent effect in the commission of the crime of murder.
