Donald R. Cressey, PhD - Death Penalty

Last updated on: 8/29/2008 | Author:

Donald R. Cressey, PhD Biography

Title:

Late Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Position:

Not Clearly Pro or Con to the question "Should the Death Penalty Be Legal?"

Reasoning:

“[The] cost is not inherent in the penalty, but imposed by judges. It is not cheaper to keep a criminal confined, because most of the time he will appeal just as much causing as many costs as a convict under death sentence. Being alive and having nothing better to do, he will spend his time in prison conceiving of ever-new habeas corpus petitions, which being unlimited, in effect cannot be rejected as res judicata. The cost is higher.”

Cowritten with Edwin Sutherland, Criminology – Fifth Edition, 1974

Involvement and Affiliations:

Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1967-1987
Visiting Fellow, University of Cambridge, 1961-1962 and 1971
Consultant, Organized Crime, President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, 1966-1967
Dean of the College of Letters and Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1962-1967
Professor, Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1959-1962
Acting Dean of Social Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, 1960-1961
Chairman, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1958-1961
Lecturer, Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles, 1949-1959

Education:

PhD, Criminology, Indiana University

Other:

Died in 1987