Kristin Houlé has been serving as the executive director of Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP) since December 2008 and is the organization’s first executive director. In Tape 1, Houlé describes her background, including her years living in Kentucky and Arkansas; her growing consciousness of the death penalty; her development as a civil rights and human rights activist; her involvement in the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Amnesty International’s program to abolish the death penalty based in Washington, DC, and the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty beginning in March 2007. In Tape 1, Houlé also shares her thoughts on the demographics of social movements; the place of activism in her life; her experience at vigils on the day of executions; her reflections on the prominence of the death penalty in Texas and shifting attitudes towards the practice. In Tape 2, Houlé discusses some of the factors affecting the public’s perception of the death penalty, including the option of life in prison without parole (LWOP), cases of innocence and exoneration, and the cost of the death penalty; Houlé ends with her vision of the abolition of the death penalty nationally. This interview took place on February 2, 2009 at the TCADP office in Austin, Travis County, Texas.
Contributor | Contribuidor:
Houlé, Kristen (Narrator), Texas After Violence Project (Contributor), Ambrosini Bacon, Kimberly (Interviewer), Hinz-Foley, Sabina (Videographer), Henderson, Kalli (Transcriber), Raymond, Virginia Marie (Proofreader), and Lorins, Rebecca (Proofreader)