Citizens are socialized to see killing as within the bounds of reasonable human conduct.
Yes! That's just it.
I've been mulling this over and I realized that this is one thing that to me clearly illustrates the "dehumanizing" aspect on society of the active use of the death penalty: People become used to it. The act of actually taking someone's life is just another way of administering justice, nothing very special, nothing to wrestle with one's conscience over. It becomes the order of the day - the focus turns to practical problems of how to kill effectively and efficiently rather than the ethical dilemmas inherent in killing at all.
I am not American, and I do not live in America, so I should of course be careful in making statements about public sentiment in the US. But Norway is fairly innundated with American culture; - we get most of the TV shows (even John Stewart now, whose program is very "internally American"), all the popular TV series, all the motion pictures.... So as far as it's fair to consider such cultural expressions as indicative of the attitudes in the American mainstream public, I've noticed this: In the American popular culture we are exposed to, the death penalty does not seem to be controversial at all. Though profoundly disturbing to me, it is presented on US TV as accepted and acceptable. As commonplace, a fact of life, nothing to spend mental resources on. That indicates to me that a certain dehumanizing effect from the use of capital punishment must have taken place in the US.
In various movies and in cop shows or legal shows or other types of show, - even those directed more at families and women, - any plot that involves the death penalty does
not revolve around conscientious, humane and moral objectons to the death penalty per se, - but to the possibility that an innocent person has been or will be sentenced to death.
Once the right perpetrator has been identified, the main characters (with whom the audience is supposed to identify) just go their merry way without seeming to consider the ethical aspects of the guilty party's upcoming capital punishment. The death sentence is just kind of taken for granted.
I have seen various episodes of shows a la CSI where this has been evident, as well as (off the top of my head) episodes of "Judging Amy" and "Medium". And I do not watch that many TV shows, just an episode here and there. It seems unlikely that I've just happened to stumble across the few American movies and shows that happened to let the main characters be unbothered by the existence of the death penalty.
The
only show I can recall that had an episode where the death penalty was presented as difficult on the conscience, something more than a practical problem, - actually as a tough moral dilemma, - is "The West Wing". There was an episode fairly early in the series where president Bartlet personally had to decide whether to change the death sentence of a federal convict to life or let his execution go ahead. Bartlet struggled with this, and consulted various religious leaders, - but in the end he let the execution take place. I remember feeling so let down - that even that early more liberal version of "The West Wing" didn't have the courage to let the main character be seen to be "weak" - that is;
humane and to stop an execution and save a life.