Articles of Interest: Missouri and Oklahoma Corrections Officials Describe Psychological Toll of Performing Executions

An April 28, 2024 report by Ed Pilkington in The Guardian chron­i­cles the trau­ma expe­ri­ences by prison offi­cials assigned to car­ry out exe­cu­tions. Oklahoma cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers asked Attorney General Gentner Drummond to slow the pace of exe­cu­tions, cit­ing ​“last­ing trau­ma,” Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and alco­hol abuse among staff due to fre­quent exe­cu­tions in the state. Former cor­rec­tions direc­tor Justin Jones told Mr. Pilkington, ​“It affects your men­tal state when it becomes so rou­tine,” to per­form exe­cu­tions. When AG Drummond brought the request to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, Judge Gary Lumpkin told offi­cials that the cor­rec­tion­al staff tasked with car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions need to ​“suck it up” and ​“man up.”

The arti­cle also quotes Missouri prison offi­cials, more than 60 of whom sought clemen­cy for pris­on­er Brian Dorsey. Governor Mike Parson reject­ed their pleas and allowed Mr. Dorsey to be exe­cut­ed on April 9, 2024. Tim Lancaster, a retired cor­rec­tions offi­cer, said, ​“You’re work­ing with a pris­on­er for 10 years, you’ve inter­act­ed with them every sin­gle day, and you can feel they’ve changed. They’ve real­ly reha­bil­i­tat­ed, and that’s the department’s goal – to reha­bil­i­tate offend­ers. … All of a sud­den they flip the switch, and now it’s like: ​‘OK, we’re going ahead and killing them. There has to be an under­ly­ing effect from that, with­out a doubt.”