Moral Injury on Death Row

This paper addresses the issue of moral injury within the American penal system, by exploring its realities in the context of Death Row. Those imprisoned have profound experiences of moral injury, requiring exploration.  It describes the key elements of moral injury in terms of its symptomology and etiology, paying particular attention to the devastation of moral identity through the experience of catastrophic violence. It delineates the ways penal practice exacerbates rather than redresses moral injury, and considers the consequences of this.   It then turns its attention to the voices of the victims of moral injury within our penal system, and to the theorists and practitioners of repair, especially Judith Herman, in order to delineate healing modalities for both practice and policy.  Key informants include insiders on death row, attorneys, judges and other participants in the system, as well as military and Veterans Administration Chaplains, who work with morally wounded warriors.