Capital Punishment

Capital Punishment Policy

One of the most controversial and argued about policies in all the countries around the world is capital punishment. Supporters of it claim that the death penalty deters people from committing capital crimes and prevents them from ever committing more capital offenses. While opponents argue that high rates of error in the criminal justice system make it quite possible to execute someone who is innocent. Many countries have already abolished capital punishment and there is a lot of pressure for countries like the United States and China who lead the world in executions to take up the same policy. I think that capital punishment does not have an effect on the amount of capital offenses committed in a country. In order to determine this I will examine Britain a country that has abolished capital punishment and the United States who still sentences people to death for their crimes. First I will give a brief history of both countries policy on capital punishment and how they have developed and changed to become what they are today. Then I will describe how their policies have worked to deter criminals from committing capital offenses and finally I will conclude whether or not my assumption was right and any variables that could have had an affect.

Britain's policy on capital punishment went through many changes before the parliament decided to abolish it in 1965. "This was the fourth time that the House of Commons had voted for abolition but the first time it had actually become law. A Commons vote in 1938 called for legislation to abolish hanging in peacetime for a five-year experiment - but the onset of World War Two meant no more happened. Two later attempts were blocked by the House of Lords and then side-stepped by Labour and Conservative governments."(Stratford). At the beginning of the 1800's Britain had more than 200 offenses that were punishable by death including things like being in the company of gypsies for one month or damaging London Bridge. "By 1861, the number of capital crimes had been reduced to just 4 (high treason, murder, piracy and arson in Royal Dockyards) by the Criminal Law Consolidation Act of that year." (Clark). The crowds at an execution had shifted from all members of society including the rich to mostly lower class; the public began to enjoy the execution of criminals far more than was thought good for them. The gatherings sometimes turned into riots and mobs if they were not satisfied with a good hanging. This eventually led to the end of public hangings in 1868. After World War Two there were several controversial cases which brought up many abolishment campaigns, in response to the publics concern the government introduced the Homicide act of 1957. "This restricted capital punishment in murder cases to five types of murder: Murder in the course or furtherance of theft, Murder by shooting or causing an explosion, Murder while resisting arrest or during an escape, Murder of a police officer or prison officer, and two murders committed on different occasions." (Stratford). This act probably only made matters worse, now a person who strangles someone to death is not eligible for hanging while a person who shoots someone can be executed. Capital murder convictions became less common and not surprisingly there was great pressure on the government to end capital punishment. "Parliament voted to abolish the death penalty for murder for a five-year experiment in 1965. Another vote in 1969 finally made the abolition of the death penalty for murder "permanent" in Great Britain. On 27 January 1999, the UK Home Secretary signed the 6th protocol of the European Convention of Human Rights in Strasbourg. This move formally abolishes the death penalty in the UK." (Stratford).

The death penalty has not been a constant in American History. It has undergone numerous changes and reforms in the past two centuries. Following the American Revolution, some legislators removed the death penalty as punishment for many crimes, and in 1840 reformers called for the elimination of the death penalty. "In 1846, the Michigan legislature made that state the first government in the world to remove the death penalty altogether."(McFeely). During the civil war era officials transferred the authority over executions from the local to the state level, which institutionalized the death penalty in a way that disturbs many people today. Other reforms have influenced the methods of putting prisoners to death. With the invention of electricity at the close of the nineteenth century, the electric chair was introduced as a more humane way of execution as opposed to hangings. Recently many states have adopted the practice of lethal injection, where a deadly chemical is introduced into the body and is responsible for death. At the opening of the twentieth century nine states abolished the death penalty all together. However in the aftermath of World War 1 five of these nine states restored capital punishment and in the 1930's two more did so as well. "While the periods following the Civil War and World War I had seen an increase in the number of states applying the death penalty, the reaction following World War II was different. In 1945, Americans learned of the six million Jews who had been systematically killed by order of the state in Germany. The idea that governments here in the United States should kill their citizens, even though the crimes committed had been abhorrent, suddenly seemed wrong." (McFeely). During the 1960's almost no prosecutors asked for the death penalty and between 1967 and 1972 there were no executions at all anywhere in the United States. In the state of Georgia in 1972 a case involving a black man named William Henry Furman ended the death penalty, with the Supreme Court ruling that capital punishment was unconstitutional according to the eighth amendment that disallows the use of cruel and unusual punishment. Then in 1976 another case in Georgia reached what was then a more conservative Supreme Court, they held that Georgia's legislature had insured that the death penalty was administered equitably, overturning their former decision to abolish it. The first person to be put to death as a result of that ruling was a white man named John Spenkelink in 1979. "Since 1979, there have been 681 executions in the United States. California and New Jersey restored the death penalty, and thirty-eight of the fifty states now have capital punishment laws." (McFeely). Prior to 1996 state primarily used the death penalty, but in that year congress decided that many federal crimes deserved that punishment as well. "Among nations with representative governments, the United States stands almost alone in its use of the death penalty. Since the death penalty has been abolished