This online course will question the key issues related to capital punishment, and its inherently flawed legal processes. A DESCENDING SPIRAL – EXPOSING THE DEATH PENALTY IN 12 ESSAYS by Marc Bookman explores “prosecutorial misconduct, racist judges and jurors, drunken lawyering, and executing the innocent and the mentally ill.” The title comes from Martin Luther King Jr.’s prophetic quote: “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy”. These essays clearly demonstrate that violent crime exposes our ugliest human instincts -revenge, fear, retribution, and prejudice. When these emotions blend with the systemic flaws of the criminal legal system, the evidence proves the USA’s “injustice system”. Currently, 27 states, the federal government still have the death penalty. Since 1973, at least 200 people wrongly convicted, and sentenced to death have been exonerated. At least 21 likely innocent people have already been executed. The American prison system has fallen predominantly on poor communities of color. The United States incarcerates more of its own than any other country in the world. Roughly 25% of the world’s total prison population is here in the United States, with over 2,500 inmates on death row, 2.3 million people behind bars, and 4.4 million people under some form of probation or parole supervision manifesting this country’s racialized mass incarceration, the prison industrial complex, and human rights catastrophe.   Whether you're considering or have already embraced the role of an abolitionist, we invite you to join us this Fall 26 semester. We'll be reading and discussing the question of the Death Penalty through the text A DESCENDING SPIRAL – EXPOSING THE DEATH PENALTY IN 12 ESSAYS by Marc Bookman. Formerly incarcerated individuals who are active in transformative justice and prison abolition movements will join us for one session. This online course will meet on Mondays between 6:00 to 7:30 pm starting Monday, September 28. Our last class is on Monday, November 9 (NO CLASS – October 12 / Indigenous Day). Please note that we will have two additional three hours each of in-person tutorial session. Lang College Civic Engagement and Social Justice, Prison Initiative Reading Group organized and initiated this course.