Capital Punishment Development
For most of recorded history, capital punishment was available to every government for especially serious crimes and often for a great variety of less serious offenses. The term felony, which today signifies all serious crime, was the traditional classification in England for crimes punishable by death. Since the 18th century, the long-term trend in nations of Western Europe and North and South America has been a reduction of the number of capital crimes (criminal offenses punishable by death) and the execution of fewer criminals.
Early Efforts Against the Death Penalty
Some distinctive doctrines in criminal law originated in efforts to restrict the number of capital crimes and executions. For instance, in the late 18th century, when all murder in the United States was punishable by death, Pennsylvania pioneered in dividing murder into two categories. The state enacted laws that authorized punishment of first-degree murder by death, while second-degree murder was punishable by imprisonment only. Elsewhere, penal codes uniformly required death for certain serious crimes. In these jurisdictions, discretionary powers to commute death sentences gradually expanded. (A commutation substitutes a lesser penalty for a more severe one-for example, replacing execution with a life sentence.) Today in many nations, including Turkey and Japan, the death penalty remains legal but the number of executions has declined over time.
Although many jurisdictions limited imposition of the death penalty, no government had formally abolished capital punishment until Michigan did so in 1846. Within 20 years Venezuela (1863) and Portugal (1867) had formally eliminated the practice as well. By the beginning of the 20th century the death sentence had been abolished in a handful of nations, such as Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Norway, and The Netherlands. Although not formally eliminated, it had fallen into disuse in many others, including Brazil, Cape Verde, Iceland, Monaco, and Panama.
After World War II
The defeat of the Axis powers provided a foundation for the elimination of the death penalty in Western Europe. Some of the nations involved in the war saw abolition of capital punishment as a way to disassociate themselves from the atrocities that had taken place. Italy formally abolished the death penalty in 1947 and the Federal Republic of Germany did so in 1949. The British government instituted a Royal Commission to study capital punishment in 1950 and abolished the death penalty in 1965. (Northern Ireland did not abolish capital punishment until 1973.) By the early 1980s every major country in Europe had stopped executing criminals.
Coincident with this trend in Western Europe, many countries belonging to the Commonwealth of Nations, an association of countries formerly affiliated with the British Empire, eliminated capital punishment. For instance, Canada conducted its last execution in 1962 and abolished the death penalty in 1976. New Zealand held its last execution in 1957 and Australia stopped executing criminals ten years later.
A similar burst of abolitionist activity coincided with the breakup of the Soviet Union. East Germany, the Czech Republic, and Romania all outlawed capital punishment between 1987 and 1990. Throughout the former Communist countries, abolition of the death penalty was a political act far removed from the usual domain of criminal justice policy-making. Eliminating the death penalty was one of many ways the citizens of these countries rejected unlimited state power over individual life. For example, in Romania the overthrow of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was followed by his execution and that of members of his family. Shortly thereafter, the new government abolished capital punishment, which was associated with Ceausescu’s brutal, tyrannical rule.
Current Status
By the late 1990s, for the first time in history, the world’s nations were almost evenly divided with respect to capital punishment. As of 2000, 72 countries no longer authorized the penalty of death for any crimes. Another 13 countries authorized capital punishment only for exceptional crimes, such as crimes under military law and crimes committed in exceptional circumstances, such as during wartime. Amnesty International, a private organization working to abolish the death penalty, characterizes 23 other nations as “de facto abolitionist”because they have not conducted an execution in at least a decade or have made an international commitment not to carry out executions.
In 2000, 87 nations authorized the death penalty for some crimes. Typically, capital punishment is reserved for individuals who commit the most violent or serious crimes, such as murder and treason. However, some governments authorize capital punishment for nonviolent or nonfatal crimes. For example, in Libya importing alcohol and trading in foreign currency are capital crimes, and in the United States large-scale drug trafficking is punishable by death.
Although the number of nations with and without capital punishment is almost equal, there are definite patterns by region and by level of economic development. None of the countries in Western Europe utilize capital punishment, nor do most countries in South America. Asian countries and Islamic nations tend to practice capital punishment. The majority of countries in Africa also authorize the death penalty.
In general, industrial democracies have abolished the death penalty, while nonindustrialized nations are much more likely to retain capital punishment. Only two advanced industrial democracies, the United States and Japan, retain the death penalty. A number of newly industrialized Asian nations, such as South Korea, also practice capital punishment. Dictatorships and other forms of totalitarian governments tend to be highly active in conducting executions.
Although the trend has been that fewer countries allow executions, the worldwide trend in the number of executions conducted cannot be reliably established. According to Amnesty International, a total of 1,813 prisoners were executed in 31 countries in 1999. Five nations-China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the United States-conducted 85 percent of all these executions. However, information about executions is somewhat unreliable because not all executions are reported and not all reported executions can be confirmed.
The worldwide trend toward abolition of capital punishment will likely continue. Among industrialized nations, those that have abolished the death penalty have shown no tendency to reverse this policy, and transnational agreements in Western Europe now support abolition of capital punishment. Only major political instability could be expected to reverse the trend in Europe, Canada, and South America. Among nations that have retained capital punishment, pressure to reduce or eliminate the death penalty appears to be increasing. China and the Islamic nations of Asia and the Middle East are likely to continue executions.
Capital Punishment
Capital Punishment and the Death Penalty Debate
Capital Punishment in the U.S.
See Capital Punishment in the United States
Contributed By:
Franklin E. Zimring, B.A., J.D. Professor of Law and Director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute, University of California at Berkeley. Co-author of The Citizen’s Guide to Gun Control, Capital Punishment and the American Agenda and other books.
“Capital Punishment,”Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000
See Also
- Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
- The principal end of punishment
- Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide
- American Convention on Human Rights
- Development of Criminology
- Criminology