Death Work is about executions. I ve studied this grim topic for about a decade<br > now. My first concern was with the character of life on death row， where con-<br > demned prisoners await the outcome of their legal appeals. In this book 1 build on<br > my earlier research， studying the executions that for more and more prisoners end<br > the long， lonely wait on death row. It is in the death chamber that the condemned<br > and their executioners make capital punishment a social reality. My aim is to place<br > that fatal connection in historical perspective， and to probe its psychological and<br > moral significance.<br > In a perverse sort of way， this is a timely topic. For roughly a decade， from the<br > late sixties to the late seventies， there was a moratorium on executions， backed by<br > the authority of the Supreme Court. This was the culmination of a gradual but<br > persistent decline in the use of the death penalty in the Western world during the<br > twentieth century. It appeared that executions would forever pass from the Amer-<br > ican scene. Nothing could have been further from the truth.<br > In 1977， the moratorium on carrying out the death sentence ended with the well<br > publicized execution of Gary Gilmore. Since then， more than a hundred people have<br > been put to death， most of them in the past few years. Some twenty-three hundred<br > prisoners are presently confined on death rows across the nation. Most have lived<br > under sentence of death for years， in some cases a decade or more. Many of them<br > are coming to the end of the legal appeals process. It is fair to say that executions<br > will be with us for the foreseeable future.<br > For better or worse， the modern death penalty is a man s affair. Of the prisoners<br > executed recently， only one， less than 1 percent， was a woman; fewer than 1 percent<br > of the prisoners waiting to die are women. More women were executed in the past，<br > especially during the infamous witch hunts， but so far as 1 can determine， in every<br > historical period women have been executed for crimes at substantially lower rates<br > than men. I am aware of no instance， at any time in history， of a woman serving as<br > an executioner. Certainly none of today s executioners are women. To be sure，<br > women staff members may take on supporting roles， particularly when the con-<br > demned prisoner is a women， but their involvement stops at that point. According-<br > ly， my narration maintains a generic male perspective except where it is obviously<br > inappropriate to do so.<br > The execution process today is distinctively mechanical， impersonal， and<br > ultimately dehumanizing. This procedure may be routine， but it can never be<br > k~<br >