Week Three - A Brief History of the Death Penalty

Question 1

According to Gattrell, 1997 what had happened by the 1860’s?

Answer 1

By 1860s, public executions had become “cruel and increasingly shocking” following period of the Bloody Code

Question 2

Who were the three controversial cases in the 1950s?

Answer 2

Timothy Evans, Ruth Ellis and Derek Bentley

Question 3

What happened in 2015?

Answer 3

2015 marked 50 years since enactment of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty Act), 1965 in England, Scotland and Wales

Question 4

Abolition did not come about as the result of one single event, or for one reason alone.

Answer 4

It happened because of a combination of sustained Parliamentary campaigning;

Public disquiet over three controversial executions in the 1950s;

Botched reforms to the law of murder in the 1950s

Changing attitudes towards social and penal affairs

Most of all, the acceptance by an enlightened majority of MPs that the state just ought not to be in the business of taking human life.

It is worth emphasising that this was a Parliamentary decision which was not supported by the public, abolition came in the face of popular support in the UK for capital punishment, at least in the abstract, which has lasted more or less until the present day (Death Penalty Project)