Position Paper - Death Penalty - Essay Example

Death penalty has been present ever since the societal shift from being primitive communal to the slave society state wherein civilizations were formed and rulers were made. The death penalty was implemented by the earliest civilizations yet there were no formal records of a death sentence being served. According to the Web site library.thinkquest.org, death penalty has very old roots; in fact, there is evidence of its application even in peoples such as Babylonians, ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. (). The earliest recorded death sentence according to the Web site www.pbs.org was in the 16th century when a member of the Egyptian nobility was accused of magic, and was ordered to take his own life. (). Through the ages death penalty was implemented, it was only the manner of which it was executed and of how it was perceived changed through time, the manner changed from the guillotine and hanging through the firing squad and lethal injection, a brief history of how death penalty was done and the violations which led to a death sentence is presented in the Web site www.pbs.org. () It was only since after World War II, that there has been a consistent trend in abolishing the death penalty.

(“Death Penalty Worldwide”, en.wikipedia.org, ). Political as well has humane considerations have been taken into account in the abolition of death penalty as a punishment for some crimes. Since the start of abolition, the number of death penalty sentences served curved down, although capital punishment was still retained in other countries, most of these countries are those with religious considerations. The Instruments of death were also changed, some were more harsh than others, in some countries morbid methods