photo journalism  is  activism

why  the Death  PENALTY? c

What is social justice to you? What kind of social justice topic interests you? The topic that catches my attention is capital punishment. Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is a controversial social justice topic that questions human rights. I choose this topic because I am against the death penalty not just because it goes against every individual's human rights, but because this system has killed and will continually kill many innocent lives.

The first time I did some research in this topic was during my freshman year in high school where I was an advocate for the abolition of the death penalty. I also realized that during my four years in high school, this topic was never taught in history class. It was just briefly mentioned in English when social issues were discussed. The death penalty is a topic that should be taught to all students in depth and not just briefly. 


The death penalty is not foreign  to our nation; it is part of our legal system. We could ask a person what is the death penalty and they would say “when a person commits a crime and it is punished by death,” but what else? There are so many other important questions that are never spoken about. Does the system allow innocent people to be killed? How are people killed? There are many questions we could ask about the death penalty, but how long until we question the validity of the system?

why  scott  Langley?

When I looked for artists that express their point of view on the death penalty, I found a photographer named Scott Langley that made a picture documentary on the execution of a man three days before he took his last breath. Langley took pictures of the prisoner’s last meal, time of execution, and final death and more. The picture that made the biggest impact on me was the expression of the witnesses watching the execution. Under United States Federal law, it is illegal to document a person in the death chamber, so there is no actual picture when the doctor injected the lethal dose. 


Langley has both a YouTube channel and a website where he can be followed. Scott Langley is an advocate for  Amnesty International, an activist group that I also take interest in. Amnesty International seeks to fight for human rights: death penalty, censorship, freedom of speech, and women’s right, etc.

Scott  Langley  Documentary

More about scott Langley's work in digital spaces

On his Facebook page,  Scott Langley headlines the topic of  the death penalty; the header image shows a picture of his gallery. You can see the photograph of a protest movement  that was meant  to  stop  capital punishment. The iconic photo  is a picture that was also featured on his website. The photograph is of a street sign reading "justice drive" and a perpendicular street sign saying "State Road 63." The picture makes you wonder where these signs are located, because it gives you an address. I looked up the address and found that State Road 63 is a road located in front of the penitentiary of the Vigo County, Indiana. After searching again, I found out that this particular penitentiary is holding 13 people on the death row since August 20, 2014. Indiana is one of the states with the highest percentage of the death penalty applied to individuals. "Justice Drive" represents the Warren County Jail located in Ohio. This jail is another location where the death penalty is applied. Langley shows this picture to grow awareness. He could have just shown the picture and explained what it meant, but he did not do that. Why? Langley wants people to explore, to be informed about the death penalty. If Langley had talked about the picture, I would not have started searching for the meaning of the street or reading about recent cases. The iconic picture conveys the message of  awareness of  the death penalty, showing how carefully he selected  the pictures for his website.