In the 1950s, the use and popularity of the death penalty declined as penal welfarism pervaded political and academic approaches to crime control. Analysis of responses to the 1958 crimes and 1959 execution of teenage serial killer Charles Starkweather reveals, however, that the integrity of penal welfarism was badly shaken by a conflict between the political and intellectual commitments required for its maintenance. As a result, Starkweather's crime and the responses it elicited called into question the core assumptions upon which 1950s penology was based: a belief that the world was a knowable, controllable place and that a competent state could use social science to maximize social harmony. Starkweather's case ultimately reveals one impetus for the return of retributive responses to crime in political and academic circles and the re-emergence of the death penalty in the last three decades of the 20th century.
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