While looking for good things to make my post about, I found an article talking about a man who interviewed and wrote a book on executioners. Ivan Solotaroff was interested in knowing why these men choose this job. He discovered that there were a few motives. Some said that they liked the machinery of death. Some felt that they just need to do what society wants - get rid of the unwanted. Some executioners are distanced from the process, suggesting that they are denying the reality of the situation and rationalizing it to make it sound better. Solotaroff found only one man who quit his job of an executioner after it took an inmate 15 minutes to die of lethal injection. I thought this article was interesting because you never really think about the personality of an executioner. Their job suggest that they would most likely be authoritarian and like to have power (Solotaroff points out). I think it would be useful in the field of psychology to research more into this. Below is the article where I read about this information.
http://college.cengage.com/psychology/resources/students/shelves/shelves_20020504.html
http://college.cengage.com/psychology/resources/students/shelves/shelves_20020504.html
Before reading this article I had never given it a thought as to why people choose to be executioners or what type of people executioners are. I found this article very intriguing because it answers these exact questions. Personally, I found it interesting to read that some executioners were okay with their job until something malfunctioned prolonging the time to kill someone. Other executioners felt powerful to have this occupation. Reading that made me immediately think of the character Percy Wetmore from the movie "The Green Mile." It can be dangerous to have someone who loves power to be in charge of putting someone to death. To get past the guilty feeling that most executioners feel, the article stated that some people remove themselves from their occupation and only look at their job as a duty to society. The author of this article found one man who is now speaking out against the death penalty around the country after watching a death row inmate that didn't die until 15 minutes had passed. Within the United States there are many different opinions about if the death penalty is wrong or right but where the death penalty is allowed people must consider those who fill the job as an executioner. Personally, it would be very difficult for me to be an executioner and lead a normal life. As an executioner I would not be able to separate my job from my own life.
I feel as though you need to have a certain kind of personality in order to be an executioner. After all, you are killing somebody for your occupation. Before reading the article, I thought people with this job probably were more emotionally distant, or stoic people who didn't let things like death affect them-- or perhaps just people who happened to "fall into" the job without much choice or thought. However, after reading the article it seems as though there are more or less, two different psychological mindsets for those who choose to be executioners. The first being a more authoritarian type personality, one who enjoys the hand of power and really believes they are doing a positive thing for the community. The other, seems to have regular morals, but distances themselves from the process by rationalizing the reasons for the victim's death in order to save themselves from remorse or regret of the situation.
As one would come to assume, there are those who fell into the occupation, and realized it definitely was not the job for them. It's not a job that one can easily stomach, and not something that everybody can rationalize-- as one man in the article was so ashamed and disgusted, he now speaks out AGAINST the death penalty.
I definitely know I would never be able to psychologically handle this situation, you have to have a certain mindset, and the ability to rationalize something that in most cases, is frowned upon amongst society.