Capital punishment, also referred to as the Death penalty, is the judicially ordered execution of a prisoner as a punishment for a serious crime, often called a capital offence or a capital crime. In those jurisdictions that practice capital punishment, its use is usually restricted to a small number of criminal offences, principally, treason and murder, that is, the deliberate premeditated killing of another person. Prisoners who have been sentenced to death are usually kept segregated from other prisoners in a special part of the prison, pending their execution. In some places this segregated area is known as Death Row.

The term capital comes from the Indo-European kaput, meaning "head", through the Latin capitalis. Thus, capital punishment is the penalty for a crime so severe that it deserves decapitation (losing one's head).

Table of contents
1 Methods of execution
2 Capital punishment around the world
3 Arguments for and against the death penalty
4 Religious views of the death penalty
5 Related articles
6 External links and references

Methods of execution

Methods of execution have varied over time, and include:

In medieval Europe, the method of execution would depend on the class of the party to be executed. The ruling class nobility would usually be executed in as painless and honorable a method as possible. Working class serfs and peasants would usually be executed publically, in a more gruesome and painful method of execution.

Capital punishment around the world

Amnesty International publishes a annual report on official judicial execution. In 2001 there were 3,048 reported cases in 31 countries. 90% of the deaths occurred in four countries. The People's Republic of China carried out 2,468 executions. Iran killed 139 people, Saudi Arabia 79 and the United States 66. In 2000 there had been 1,457 executions. The PRC has executed 20,000 between 1990 and 2001 with 1,781 people executed between April and July 2001 in a "Strike Hard" crime crackdown.

The highest per capita use of the death penalty is Singapore, with a population of about four million and an average of 70 executions per year, mostly for drugs offenses. The Singapore government is famously secretive about just how many executions take place, by hanging, every Friday morning in Changi prison. Relatives typically do not learn until afterward.


Most democratic countries today have abolished the death penalty, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, almost all of Europe and much of Latin America. Together 111 countries either do not have or do not use the death penalty. Many other states retain it, especially in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Caribbean and the United States.

The most comprehensive source lists less than 15,000 people executed in the United States or its predecessors between 1608 and 1991.[1] More accurate statistics list 4661 executions in the U.S. in the period 1930-2002 with about 2/3 of the executions occurring in the first twenty years.[1] Additionally the U.S. Army executed 160 soldiers between 1930 and 1967. The last U.S. Navy execution was in 1849. (See also: Capital punishment in the United States)

Only seven countries practice the death penalty for juveniles, that is criminals aged under 18 at the time of their crime. Nearly all actual executions for juvenile crime take place in the USA, although, due to the slow process of appeals, no one under age 19 has been executed since possibly 1959, definitely before 1964.[1] [1] In the United States the death penalty cannot be applied to criminals under age 16 and higher ages are legislated in many states. In the United States and ancestor bodies politic since 1642, an estimated 364 juvenile offenders have been put to death by states and the federal government. Although the People's Republic of China accounts for the vast majority of executions in the world, it does not allow for the executions of those under 18. [1] Execution of those aged under age 18 has occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Iran since 1990. [1]

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids capital punishment for juveniles, has been signed by all countries except the USA and Somalia, so it is likely that legally persons for crimes committed as children (as defined by the Convention), will be restricted to the USA.

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The same was also true of Turkey, but in August 2002, as a move towards EU membership, the death penalty was removed from law as well as practice, but only during peacetime. In January 2004 Turkey abolished death penalty completely, including during wartime [1]. As a result of this, Europe is a continent free of the death penalty in practice, with the sole exception of Belarus, which is not a member of the Council of Europe. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has also been lobbying for the Council of Europe observer states who practice the death penalty (namely the United States and Japan) to be told to abolish it also or lose their observer status.

Arguments for and against the death penalty

Support for the death penalty varies widely from nation to nation, and it can be a highly contentious political issue, particularly in democracies that use it. A majority of adults in the United States appear to support its continuance (though like most political issues, the numbers vary widely depending on the exact question asked), but a highly vocal, organised minority of people in that country do not, and non-governmental organisations like Amnesty lobby against it globally. In Taiwan, the death penalty appears to have large amounts of public support, and there is little public movement to abolish it. By contrast, in most of Western Europe, public opinion overwhelming regards capital punishment as barbaric and there is little public support for its reinstatement. In countries where it has been abolished, debate is sometimes revived by particularly brutal murders, though few countries have brought it back after abolition.


  • The death penalty is killing. Killing is wrong, therefore the death penalty is wrong.
  • This is a human rights violation.
  • It is not a deterrent because anyone that would be deterred by the death penalty would already have been deterred by life in prison, and people that are not deterred by that wouldn't be stopped by any punishment.
  • With mandatory appeals and enhanced requirements for capital cases, the cost of a death penalty case far exceeds (usually by a factor of ten) the cost of a trial and life imprisonment.


Key arguments for supporters of the death penalty include:

  • That people committing the most heinous crimes (usually murder, in Western countries that practice the death penalty) have forfeited the right to life so executing them is not murder.
  • Beliefs in reciprocity or lex talionis - essentially, "an eye for an eye" - which is part of the concept of justice for many people.
  • That it is in fact less cruel than prolonged sentences of imprisonment, especially under the conditions that would be popularly demanded for heinous criminals.
  • That it is explicitly allowed in constitutions and other documents of basic law.
  • That it enjoys democratic support of the people.
  • That it deters crime.


Religious views of the death penalty

Death penalty in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible, Old Testament)

The Tanakh prescribes the death penalty for a great many violations of law. Most historians no longer accept the view that the laws of the Bible, as written, were ever actually followed as a legal code. Instead, they hold that the laws in the Bible were developed in a living society and culture, and that the oral law of this society was not identical to what one would posit from a literal reading of the Biblical text alone. Rabbinic Jews have always held this view; they go further and teach that a specific oral law (later redacted in the Talmud) explains the meaning and context of these Biblical laws. In this view the death penalty was rarely used, and exceedingly difficult to carry out. The Gospel of John (18:31) implies that it was impossible for the Jews to kill Jesus for the crimes of which he was accused, and that he was thus given to the Romans for trial.

Jewish view of the death penalty



Christian view of the death penalty



Muslim view of the death penalty



Related articles

External links and references

Groups which oppose the death penalty: