-Caveat Lector- America braced for 'brutalisation effect' as McVeigh waits to die By Andrew Gumbel in Terre Haute, Indiana Independent (UK) 05 May 2001 Mark Hamm took one look at the gruesome image on television and had no doubt what it portended. Someone across the state line in Illinois had ripped out the guts of a dog and strung up the poor animal in public over a device looking like a guillotine. To the average television viewer, it might have seemed a particularly sick item of local news. To Professor Hamm, who teaches criminology at Indiana State University here, it felt like the beginning of what he expects to be a wave of violence to mark the execution of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, at the federal penitentiary just outside Terre Haute in 11 days' time. The dog owner was a white supremacist. "I think he and a group of skinheads did it to make a statement about their willingness to do evil," Professor Hamm said. "This was an act of anger about the McVeigh execution. The brutalisation effect has begun." The term "brutalisation effect" is used by academics to refer to a phenomenon that tends to occur around any execution: a marked increase in the rate of murders and other violent crimes that starts before a prisoner is put to death and lasts for some time after. This happens even at the most routine executions, the theory being that capital punishment inures people to violence and suggests to criminals that if killing is all right for the state then it might be all right for them too. How widespread the effect will be with someone as notorious as McVeigh is anybody's guess, but the signs are ominous. Not only is there talk of his death by lethal injection on 16 May being hailed by anti- government survivalists and white supremacists as some kind of martyrdom; it will also have saturation media coverage, including a closed-circuit relay of his final moments broadcast to relatives of his victims in Oklahoma City. The city of Terre Haute is taking no chances. All schools in the area will be closed for the day. Up to 1,000 police, from federal investigators to beat cops, will be on the streets to keep order among the thousands of protesters, media representatives and other potentially disruptive influences. "We just don't know what will happen," said Sister Helen Prejean, the celebrated death penalty opponent who plans to address audiences across Indiana in the next fortnight. She told an audience in Evansville she was afraid someone might take a leaf out of McVeigh's virulent anti-government book and attack a federal target. "I don't know that I'd be going into a post office for a few days after," she said. The disembowelled dog is not the only sign of trouble. This week, a 56-year-old man was beaten to death in Terre Haute by two teenagers with an axe handle and a baseball bat, apparently in retaliation for a fight they had had last weekend. Professor Hamm said there were also unconfirmed reports that a group of young people had stolen munitions in central Tennessee and were heading north for the execution. The reports could be part of the general hysteria, but they could also be a real threat. The brutalisation effect has been noted by professional criminologists since 1980, shortly after the United States reintroduced the death penalty. Two researchers in New York state estimated in a landmark study that the average knock-on effect of an execution was two murders within one month, and another within two months. Since then, similar patterns have been demonstrated in Pennsylvania, California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Illinois and elsewhere. Anxious to allay any such upsurge, city officials in Terre Haute are frantically trying to maintain some sense of dignity as the circus beckons. Mayor Judith Anderson is urging people to "do something positive" on 16 May. "Plant some flowers, take your children to a park ... Try not to dwell on somebody being killed at 7am," she said. One county official is hoping to plant 168 tree seedlings, one for each person who died in the Oklahoma bombing six years ago. Some Terre Haute residents are making no secret of their desire to profit from the occasion. Hamburgers and shish kebabs will be sold on the street. One entrepreneur, 31-year-old Tony Lewis, is selling T-shirts with images of McVeigh on eBay, the online auction site. One batch bears the slogan: "Terre Haute Extra/Hangin' Times Die, Die, Die". Another, for death penalty opponents, reads: "Let McVeigh Live". Rod Henry, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, said: "It's a sick concept. We're going to have a hard enough time maintaining the image of our community. And now this." <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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