Campaigning for LWOP

Chapter 2 explores the broader political sphere and focuses on the strategies developed by two of the most vocal organizations involved in the Savings Accountability and Full Enforcement (SAFE) Campaign of 2012 in California (hereinafter SAFE Campaign): The ‘American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California’ (ACLU-NC) and ‘Death Penalty Focus’ (DPF). This chapter of the book combines an analysis of pamphlets, flyers, and public discourses, with a narrative informed by interviews with some of the Campaign’s most vocal activists. The politics of abolition in the public sphere are characterized by a progressive instrumentalization of LWOP’s severity that is shaped by penal populist paradigm shifts and heightened fiscal concerns.