Capital Punishment

Getting Rid of the Death Penalty

Capital punishment was a corrective measure that was widely used all over the world. It is difficult to pin point the exact date of it's origin but it is a fact that it was practiced intensely during medieval times. Crimes have occurred probably since the beginning of time and therefore there was a need for a counter attack to minimize if not eradicate it completely. Laws were created for this purpose, but like everything man creates they have proved imperfect and in some cases entirely unacceptable.

In Britain, as James B Christoph[1] points out, the major cause for this trend was the social and economic chaos brought about by the Industrial Revolution. The spread of poverty as well as child labor, prostitution and other social evils went hand in hand with unexpected wealth, which sparked off crime. The amazing existence of both these extremes caused insecurity among the lawmakers in Britain resulting in the creation of strict rules, making any offense from stealing turnips to cutting down a tree punishable by death. Some examples he sites show just how obscure the law was.

In 1801, a 13-year-old boy was publicly hanged for breaking into a house and stealing a spoon. In 1808, a 7-year-old girl was hang at Lynn for setting a house on fire. To express concern over the above examples, surely these minors did not deserve the kind of punishment they received. Were these crimes so heinous and diabolically evil that only through execution would everyone else understand the gravity of contemplating such an act?

Passage of time is usually synonymous with change and as usual man is looking for more innovative ways to carry out his daily activities. This pursuit for perfection did not exclude the death penalty. Other methods of carrying out this punishment emerged, some, more blood curdling than the next but still deemed fit by our ancestral "law makers. "

Beheading was a common practice for the Romans and the Greeks. They considered it honorable and therefore preferred it to hanging. The instruments used were the axe and the sword. Later on, the English also employed beheading as sited by John Lawrence.1[2] He states that William the Conqueror introduced beheading to England and the first unfortunate person to experience it was a man named Waltheof, Earl of Northumberland, in 1076. Differing from the Rom...

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...ifferent countries aborting the act as well as the emergence of more and more organizations against this form of punishment. Recent countries that have abolished capital punishment6 include Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Lithuania and The United Kingdom all in 1998. The various organizations currently involved include Amnesty International, Equal Justice USA, Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty and Catholics Against Capital Punishment.

WORKS CITED

1. Christoph, James, page 14, "Capital Punishment and British Politics," The University of Chicago Press, 1962.

2. Lawrence, John, page 28, "A History of Capital Punishment," The Citadel Press, New York, 1960.

3. Lawrence, John, page 69," A History of Capital Punishment," The Citadel Press, New York, 1960.

4. Harpers Magazine, page 29"China's Crimes and Punishment," November 1997.

5. Bradgon, David. "Bring Back Capital Punishment Page," http://www.geocities.com/capitolHill/Lobby/5258/index.html

6. Amnesty International. "List of Abolitionist and Retentionis Countries," http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/dp/abrelist.htm