Death Row Welcomes You
Visiting Hours in the Shadow of the Execution Chamber
"An eye-opening journey to a place that’s hard to access, rarely seen and shrouded by myths of monsters and abominations. ... Death Row Welcomes You demands that we not look away."- New York Times
In the vein of Waiting for an Echo and Dead Man Walking, a deeply immersive look at justice in America, told through the interwoven lives of condemned prisoners and the men and women who come to visit them . . .
In 2018, after nearly a decade’s hiatus, the state of Tennessee began executing death row inmates, bucking national trends that showed the death penalty in decline. In less than two years, the state put seven men to death, more than any other state but Texas in that…
Steven Hale is an award-winning writer who worked for ten years as a staff reporter covering criminal justice and politics for the Nashville Scene. He has written extensively about Tennessee's death row, for which he won an Association of Alternative Newsmedia "Best Reporting" Award in 2020. His work has also appeared at The Appeal, The Daily Beast, and The Washington Post. He is currently a criminal defense investigator in Nashville, Tennessee, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.
