The State of New Jersey just voted to eliminate capital punishment, and death penalty opponents argued that murderers suffer more through life imprisonment than quick execution. Ironically, the day after New Jersey’s vote, a story in the Dallas Morning News described the love life of prisoners on the Texas Death Row—many of whom “romance” up to ten women at a time, in-e mails, phone calls and visits. Most of these women are Europeans, some of them spectacularly beautiful, recruited by anti-death penalty groups to come live near the maximum security prison where they get to see the convicts, through plexiglass, up to four hours at time.  

Some of the women marry the inmates, and send them provocative photos which then become status symbols on death row. This sickening pattern explodes the notion that imprisonment is a harsher penalty than execution—especially after the spate of recent studies showing capital punishment does produce a powerful deterrent effect.