Release
University at Albany Establishes
National Death Penalty Archive
Contact: Catherine Herman (518) 437-4980
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Sing Sing prisoners.
From the Special Collections exhibit
that includes Scott Christianson's book, "Condemned:
Inside the Sing Sing Death House." |
ALBANY, N.Y. (August 9, 2005) -- The University
at Albany's School of Criminal Justice today
announced the establishment of a national repository
of archival material devoted solely to the
death penalty. The National Death Penalty Archive
(NDPA) was initiated by the school's Capital
Punishment Research Initiative (CPRI) to collect
and document the history of capital punishment.
It will preserve resources for historical scholarship
and research on the death penalty and make
accessible the records of individuals and organizations
working on issues related to capital punishment.
The University at Albany Library's M.E. Grenander
Department of Special Collections and Archives
is collaborating with CPRI to maintain and
grow the National Death Penalty Archive.
"This collection is vital to the future
of the study of capital punishment," said
constitutional historian and University at
Albany President Kermit L. Hall, "The
death penalty is one of the most contentious
issues in American jurisprudence and culture,
and I am proud that as one of the nation's
top-ranked schools for criminal justice, we
continue to lead by bringing this collection
to fruition."
The archive was inaugurated at the M.E. Grenander
Archives on the UAlbany campus in a ceremony
featuring leading national death penalty experts
including keynote speaker Hugo Adam Bedau,
emeritus professor, Tufts University; William
J. Bowers, director of the Capital Jury Project;
journalist and scholar Scott Christianson;
David Kaczynski, executive director of New
Yorkers Against the Death Penalty; Michael
E. Radelet of the University of Colorado at
Boulder; and CPRI co-directors Professor James
Acker of the School of Criminal Justice and
Charles Lanier.
"We're building a collection that will
serve as a primary resource for historians,
researchers, faculty, students, and interested
members of the public," said CPRI Co-director
Charles Lanier. "Their scholarship will
add enormously to the understanding of this
significant aspect of our criminal justice
system."
"The National Death Penalty Archive
is a landmark developments in the history of
capital punishment," said the Capital
Jury Project's William J. Bowers. "We
owe Jim Acker, Charles Lanier, and the University
at Albany a great debt for making this happen."
"The opening of the National Death Penalty
Archive is a welcome and important event," said
Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death
Penalty Information Center in Washington D.C. "The
history of the death penalty reflects of our
country's political history, our moral and
cultural history, and tracks the development
of our justice system."
The collection of historical materials will
be an unrivaled resource for scholars, students,
and the public interested in the history of
capital punishment in America, and in the legal
and political battles engendered by the sanction.
In addition to housing the records and documents
of leading figures in scholarship, and legal
and community organizations concerning capital
punishment, the archive includes oral history
interviews featuring prominent activists and
professionals involved in death penalty abolition
efforts and related work.
Among the items collected for the archive
currently on display are the Hugo Adam Bedau
Papers, from the Tufts emeritus professor and
pioneering scholar of the death penalty in
America; the William J. Bowers/Capital Jury
Project Collection, containing some 1,200 interviews
with jurors from more than 350 capital trials;
the Alvin Ford Collection, the papers of a
convicted murderer who went insane on death
row; the Joe Ingle/Southern Coalition on Jails
and Prisons Papers, a group formed to advocate
for alternatives to the death penalty; and
the Rick Halperin Collection, featuring news
coverage of death penalty issues from across
the nation in the 1970s and 1980s.
In addition, the archive features the Abolitionist
Oral History Project, an ongoing research initiative
of audio and video interviews with death penalty
abolitionists, biographical information, and
personal documents and/or papers associated
with the interviews.
The archive is especially interested in collecting
primary documents, such as letters, reports,
unpublished writings, personal papers, organizational
records, and related materials that currently
reside in the hands of activists, scholars,
lawyers, family members, and others whose lives
have been touched by the death penalty.
The Capital Punishment Research Initiative,
part of the Hindelang Criminal Justice Research
Center, was founded in the late 1990s with
three primary goals: (1) to build and maintain
a national archive for historical documents
and data on the death penalty; (2) to plan
and conduct basic and policy related research
on capital punishment; and (3) to encourage
scholarship, conduct graduate and undergraduate
training, and disseminate scientifically grounded
knowledge about the ultimate penal sanction.
The M.E. Grenander Department of Special
Collections and Archives is home to print,
manuscript, and archival sources on a wide
array of historical topics. The department
provides more than 25,000 cubic feet of temperature
and humidity controlled shelving space. For
additional information on the National Death
Penalty Archive, visit http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/ndpa.htm or
www.albany.edu/scj/cpri.htm,
or contact [email protected].
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