In an op-ed for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, for­mer cor­rec­tions offi­cial David Rose crit­i­cizes the arbi­trari­ness and dehu­man­iz­ing nature of the death penal­ty. Rose, who spent 30 years work­ing in cor­rec­tions in Pennsylvania, Florida, and New Jersey, said, ​“I don’t think the pub­lic real­izes the impact that exe­cu­tions have on the pub­lic ser­vants who are tasked with car­ry­ing them out.” Rose draws on his own expe­ri­ences and those of his col­leagues to describe the toll that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment takes on peo­ple who work in pris­ons. He says he knows of no cor­rec­tions offi­cials who believe the death penal­ty is nec­es­sary for the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of prison per­son­nel, but has met a num­ber who con­sid­ered the death penal­ty ​“a waste of mon­ey that caused seri­ous secu­ri­ty issues when exe­cu­tions were actu­al­ly car­ried out.” Rose said it is ​“some­times dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish those who end up on death row from those who get less­er sen­tences based on their crimes or lev­el of cul­pa­bil­i­ty” and describes a time he was assigned to mon­i­tor a new­ly death-sen­tenced inmate until he could be trans­ferred to death row: ​“I still remem­ber the time that I spent sit­ting out­side the cell of that con­demned inmate, think­ing of how absurd it was that my employ­ment could one day depend on get­ting some inmates ready for release and anoth­er day on keep­ing an inmate alive so the state could kill him.” Rose rec­om­mends oth­er pro­grams in place of the large amounts tax­pay­ers spend on the death penalty.

“Investing in men­tal-health and drug- and alco­hol-treat­ment pro­grams while improv­ing pro­grams that ensure peo­ple com­ing out of prison are pre­pared for soci­ety, with prop­er super­vi­sion and resources so that they are less like­ly to com­mit crimes and end up back in the sys­tem, would be a much smarter use of resources,” he says.

(D. Rose, ​“Executions dehu­man­ize every­one,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 27, 2015.) See New Voices.

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