Capital Punishment in The UK - Research Paper Example

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN UK Introduction Present day legal discussion in many countries, including US, involves the total abolition of death penalty. However, the efforts of activist campaign initiated by major organizations like Amnesty International have been hindered by varying political as well as ethical outlooks. Among the nations which prohibited capital punishment, UK holds the first position. Other nations include Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and many more in Central and South America. Today abolition of capital punishment is a criterion for any country to join the European Union (Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment Vol, 1, 2002, p.158). This paper in particular, tends to describe the history of capital punishment in UK, the evolution of major regulations on its abolishment, ethical aspects of this issue, and arguments against and for its reintroduction etc. Brief History of Capital Punishment in UK Capital punishment in UK has a history dating back to several centuries. Initially, the punishment was meant for breaching royal ethics or disturbing the piece of administrative wings in the country. As stated in Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment Vol, 1 (2000, p.158) states, though England was the major influence on colonial America and the United States for their legal tradition, none of them ever carried out capital punishment with the same ferocity in their country as it was in England. Early days were notoriously remarkable with people getting hung for the crimes they had done. The punishment was in particular carried out by hanging the person proposed to death on the branch of a tree. Methods adopted to execute people were rather barbarian those days; apart from hanging, people were executed in various other ways like boiling, burning at the stake, decapitation and sometimes, drawing and quartering while still alive. England was historically considered to be the country to facilitate more number of crimes than any other one on the face of the earth. According to Johnson & Zimring (2009), the capital punishments Britain carried out reflected the punishment policy it had adopted in colonies. The history of England reveals the prolific but horrifying fact that over 220 crimes were considered punishable by death. However, by 1957 death penalty was restricted to four types of offences such as a) killing a policeman, b) killing during an armed robbery, c) killing by causing an explosion, and d) killing more than one person (Keene 2002). Critics were of the opinion that until 1957 the law itself gave more opportunity to people to commit capital crimes or was widening its judicial areas where common people would trespass with their ultimate destiny of being caught after ‘committing’ the ‘capital crime’ in most cases because murder, burglary and robbery were the commonest capital offenses those days. To illustrate, the law had no mercy upon child offenders. Children were commonly executed for mere stealing. The offenses were treated with a high intensity mode of operation of law and the offender did not have his counsel to plead his innocence. For instance in 1950, Timothy Evans who later known to be an innocent man, was hanged for killing his daughter; and was pardoned posthumously in 1966 (Keene 2002). The History of Abolition The British government reduced the number of execution during the period between late eighteenth century and middle of nineteenth century. Declaration of liberating pickpockets and lesser offenders from capital punishment was officially done by Romilly in 1808. This was the first ever reported reform of revised law of capital offenses. In fact, the proposal for capital punishment in most petty cases was aimed at the appreciation or the interest of the provincial heads or clergies. The property of royal families which required high profile security demanded capital punishments to offenders of comparatively negligible crimes like petty thefts and house breaking etc. Till the enactment of Judgement of Death Act of 1823, death penalty was inevitable for all capital offenses unless the execution was commuted by the government. Segregation of capital punishment and its reasonable amendments paved way for abolishing the practice of beheading and quartering of executed traitors by 1870. The law of death penalty of children was amended in 1908 with a move against children less than 16 years of age being executed. In order to support the rights of children to live and to have parents, the murder charges booked on mothers who killed their children in the first year of its birth was diverted to charge of infanticide. The new law of punishment for infanticide of 1922 was again amended with a provisional stay of five years. Subsequently, the brutal methods adopted to execute offenders were reviewed in the later course of action and the effect of which showed the result as abolition of gibbeting in 1832 and the obliteration of hanging in chains in 1834. A century of political changes brought many reforms in administrative systems of the government. Civilian rights were of high priority in the course of action carried out later than 1830s. As part of the political development, the number of capital offenses was reduced. This move gave much more freedom to common man in fearless interaction of personal affairs. A number of reforms took place during middle of 19th century. The Capital Punishment Act of 1868 made provisions for abolition of public execution of capital punishment. ‘Michael Barret’ and ‘Frances Kidder’ were the last two persons to be hanged ‘publicly’ in 1868; whereas the last execution in all Britain took place on August 13th 1964 in which two offenders named ‘Peter Anthony Allen’ and ‘Gwynne Owen Evans’ were hung simultaneously (The History of Judicial Hanging in Britain). By the following year on 9th November 1965, the Murder Act (Abolition of Death Penalty) suspended capital punishment for a period of five years; and later in 1969 the suspension came into permanent effect. Death Penalty Statistics: an Overview As per the statistics, in England and Wales alone around 10,935 civilians were executed during the period between 1735 and 1964, among which 10,378 were men and 557 were women (The History of Judicial Hanging in Britain). According to the findings of the Amnesty International, two-third of the countries of the world has abolished the death penalty; while 58 countries retained it in 2009. Among others (except China), 18 have carried out executions in various methods like hanging, shooting, beheading, stoning, and lethal injection which killed 714 people (The Death Penalty in 2009). Ethical Perspectives Although Death penalty was abolished in UK, still there are many who believe that it has to be reintroduced as an effective tool to reduce crime rate. For instance, in 1972, a petition of 250000 signatures was submitted to the British Parliament to reconsider the return of death penalty for ‘premeditated murder’; and the following opinion polls attained a sound 70-75 percent in favour of capital punishment (Keene 2002). In addition to this, several attempts have been made in 1979, 1983, 1987, and 1988 in parliament to bring the practice into force but every time majority voted against it (Keene 2002). In contrast, the opponents of capital punishment think that it is seldom an effective method to deal with criminal behaviours or to reduce crime rate. Furthermore, capital punishment is ethically wrong as it does not offer individual a chance to correct. According to their view, we can not simply blame an individual for every act because he/she can be a person highly pitted against social factors. Hence, society has the moral responsibility to correct the mistake of offenders or give them chance to repent. Another argument suggests that the individual who is sentenced to death can be sometimes innocent as it happened in the case of Timothy Evans. Hunter (2009) states that justice system can be flawed and it would be horrible if it executes innocents. To illustrate, sociologists like Thorsten Sellin (1967), Bowers (1974), and Reckless (1969) have proved that death penalty has no effect in reducing crime rate (Cited in Samaha 2005, p.396). They reached this conclusion by analyzing the crime rates of both category of US states; states which had abolished capital punishment and states which retained it. People who favour this camp of debate also argue that killing a healthy person is the clear violation of human rights. They assume that crime in British society is attributed to several factors including social injustice, racism, unemployment, family reasons, or unexpected annoyance; and therefore, capital punishment can bring no solution to any of these problems. If then, no legal interpretation will sufficiently answer the ethical aspect of this issue. On the other hand, supporters of death penalty say that crimes like murder and rape are serious social threats and they have to be treated with the utmost measures available. At this juncture, capital punishment is the best tool to ensure justice to the victims. Some argue that abolition of the punishment in UK is not based on any sorts of ethical values. A critique on the report of the British Royal Commission goes like this, “There was also no discussion of whether any conception of a right to life or any other category of human rights should be regarded as a limit on the execution of criminal offenders. Questions about human rights were not on the map of this comprehensive report” (Zimring 2004). If the capital punishment is an ethical concern of human life in UK, what could be the justification given for abortion; they ask. According to them, constitutional amendments have reduced the gravity of this offence and made it a common practice in UK. For instance, the rampant increase in the number of abortions in the UK since the Abortion Act 1967 tends one to be sceptical about the moral perception of the society. Despite the growing call for the return of death penalty in UK, more countries are moving toward the abolition of this immoral mode of punishment. No matter what the range of its relevance in modern society is, legal as well as moral conviction on this issue is always relative and subject to change. However, as we approach the issue with modern eyes, death penalty seems fruitless because crime rate has been found comparatively high in countries where death penalty is the utmost punitive measure. The ancient concept of death penalty was a mere tool of vengeance rather than a preventive measure. The sole objective of death penalty could be best illustrated as “vengeance is the ultimate means of loyalty to those who can not avenge themselves” (Sarat 2002). Conclusion To sum up, the history of capital punishment in UK is closely associated with its imperial culture of ancient past. The nation was the major influence of judicial practices on its colonies because it made them follow the similar mode of punishment even after centuries of imperialism. The British kingdom also was influenced by the judicial culture it had implemented in colonies. However, the initial step toward the abolition of capital punishment was taken by UK as it abolished the practice completely in 1969. Even today it is a debatable issue in the country as many people still are in favour of its return while others firmly oppose it for various ethical reasons. References The Death Penalty in 2009, Amnesty International, retrieved from http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/death-sentences-and-executions-in-2009 Hunter, DA 2009, A Practical Guide to Critical thinking: Deciding What to Do and Believe. John Wiley and Sons. New Jersey. The History of Judicial Hanging in Britain 1735-1964, retrieved from http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/hanging1.html#intro Johnson, DT & Zimring FE 2009, The Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change and the Death Penalty in Asia. Oxford University Press US, New York. Keene, M 2002, Truth, Spirituality, and Contemporary Issues, Folens Limited, UK. Levinson, D (Ed.) 2002, Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment Vol., 1, SAGE, California. Samaha J, 2005, Criminal Justice. Edn 7, Cengage Learning. US Sarat A, 2002, When the State Kills: Capital punishment and the American Condition. Princeton University Press. New Jersey. Zimring, FE 2004, The Contradictions of US Capital Punishment, Oxford University Press, New York. Read More