A trauma framework is applied to the experiences of execution team members. A directed content analysis of three seminal publications is used to investigate how execution team members respond to observing and participating in executions, a potentially traumatic stressor. Through these texts, supplemented by other research, the study finds that the execution process, meant to facilitate executions and insulate execution team officers from stress, only partially achieves these goals. The findings suggest that many of the concepts central to understanding executioners at work—how they understand and cope with their roles—are dynamic rather than static and vary in degree across persons and situations. Execution team officers report varying degrees of difficulty fully rationalizing and diffusing responsibility for their actions, ultimately leading to internal conflict and stress about the death penalty and participation in executions.

创伤框架适用于执行团队成员的经历。对三个开创性出版物的定向内容分析用于调查执行团队成员如何对观察和参与处决（一种潜在的创伤性压力源）做出反应。通过这些文本，并辅以其他研究，该研究发现，旨在促进处决并使执行团队官员免受压力的执行过程仅部分实现了这些目标。研究结果表明，理解工作中的刽子手的许多核心概念——他们如何理解和应对自己的角色——是动态的而不是静态的，并且在不同的人和情况下程度不同。执行小组官员报告说，完全合理化和分散对其行为的责任有不同程度的困难，