Last updated on: 8/29/2008 | Author: ProCon.org

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 Allowed?"
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
Quoted in:
  1. Does the Death Penalty Cost Less Than Life in Prison without Parole?