This lecture explores contemporary foundations of moral order along with explanations for criminal behavior, giving special attention to strategies for crime control What has happened in our culture to create widespread concern with incivility? What has brought about such an alarming and costly expansion of the criminal justice system? Blending these inquiries, Dr. Zingraff discusses how the answers point our attention toward community life. The steps we take to create responsive and responsible communities can bring the reward of a more civil, and a more safe, social world.

The American Bar Association endorsed a moratorium on executions in the United States in 1997. Since then, support for such a moratorium has been gaining momentum while the death rows of American prisons have been growing in population. National headlines about innocent people who had been wrongly condemned to die have been met by official silence, or by assurances that "it doesn't happen here," and only rarely (as in Illinois) by decisive action to halt executions in the face of uncertainties. These same headlines, however, have strengthened the moratorium momentum in America. Concern with the impact of class and race in these life and death decisions add to the momentum and also to the sense of America as a nation divided. Dr. Zingraff's review of the movement for a death penalty moratorium does not advocate specific policy, but, rather, invites audiences to re-examine their own convictions, pro or con, on this timely issue.