Death Penalty Debate
Capital Punishment: the Death Penalty Debate
The practice of capital punishment is as old as government itself. For most of history, it has not been considered controversial. Since ancient times most governments have punished a wide variety of crimes by death and have conducted executions as a routine part of the administration of criminal law. However, in the mid-18th century, social commentators in Europe began to emphasize the worth of the individual and to criticize government practices they considered unjust, including capital punishment. The controversy and debate over whether governments should utilize the death penalty continue today.
The first significant movement to abolish the death penalty began during the era known as the Age of Enlightenment. In 1764 Italian jurist and philosopher Cesare Beccaria published Tratto dei delitti e delle pene (1764; translated as Essay on Crimes and Punishments, 1880). Many consider this influential work the leading document in the early campaign against capital punishment. Other individuals who campaigned against executions during this period include French authors Voltaire and Denis Diderot, British philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith, and political theorist Thomas Paine in the United States.
Critics of capital punishment contend that it is brutal and degrading, while supporters consider it a necessary form of retribution (revenge) for terrible crimes. Those who advocate the death penalty assert that it is a uniquely effective punishment that deters crime. However, advocates and opponents of the death penalty dispute the proper interpretation of statistical analyses of its deterrent effect. Opponents of capital punishment see the death penalty as a human rights issue involving the proper limits of governmental power. In contrast, those who want governments to continue to execute tend to regard capital punishment as an issue of criminal justice policy. Because of these alternative viewpoints, there is a profound difference of opinion not only about what is the right answer on capital punishment, but about what type of question is being asked when the death penalty becomes a public issue. (1)
Brutality
Early opponents of capital punishment objected to its brutality. Executions were public spectacles involving cruel methods. In addition, capital punishment was not reserved solely for the most serious crimes. Death was the penalty for a variety of minor offenses.
Main Entry: Death Penalty Debate Brutality
Dignity
In the debate about execution and human dignity, supporters and opponents of the death penalty have found very little common ground. Opponents of capital punishment assert that it is degrading to the humanity of the person punished. Since the 18th century, those who wish to abolish the death penalty have stressed the significance of requiring governments to recognize the importance of each individual. However, supporters of capital punishment see nothing wrong with governments deliberately killing terrible people who commit terrible crimes. Therefore, they see no need to limit governmental power in this area.
Main Entry: Death Penalty Debate: Dignity
Effectiveness
Early opponents of capital punishment also argued that inflicting death was not necessary to control crime and properly punish wrongdoers. Instead, alternative punishment-such as imprisonment-could effectively isolate criminals from the community, deter other potential offenders from committing offenses, and express the community’s condemnation of those who break its laws. In his Essay on Crimes and Punishments, Beccaria asserted that the certainty of punishment, rather than its severity, was a more effective deterrent.
Main Entry: Death Penalty Debate Effectiveness
Human Rights
A unique facet of the modern debate about capital punishment is the characterization of the death penalty as a human rights issue, rather than a debate about the proper punishment of criminals. Modern opposition to the death penalty is seen as a reaction to the political history of the 20th century, most notably the Holocaust-the systematic mass killing of Jews and others during World War II (1939-1945). All the major nations in Western Europe utilized capital punishment prior to World War II. After the defeat of the National Socialist (Nazi) and Fascist governments of Germany and Italy, those two nations became the first major powers in Europe to abolish capital punishment. The postwar movement to end capital punishment, beginning in Italy and Germany and then spreading, represented a reaction to totalitarian forms of government that systematically violated the rights of the individual.
Main Entry: Death Penalty Debate and Human Rights
Death Penalty Debate contents in this legal Encyclopedia also includes: Death Penalty Debate, Death Penalty Debate Brutality, Death Penalty Debate Dignity, Death Penalty Debate Effectiveness and Death Penalty Debate and Human Rights.
More About Capital Punishment
Capital Punishment
World Development
See Capital Punishment Development in the World
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.
Resources
Notes and References
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
- International human rights law
- International criminal law: Crimes against Humanity
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