In the United States, the state has a monopoly on death, violence, and violent death, all of which are dispensed unevenly and along racial lines. Charlotte Rosen writes on lethal injection, whose gruesomeness often goes underdiscussed—though in truth, there can be no “humane” death penalty. And Jess McAllen explains how New York’s punitive approach to serious mental illness, wielded in the name of “public safety,” harms the city’s most vulnerable individuals.
