Most countries around the world have **abolished** the death penalty; meaning they *used* to have it, but have banned it, with bans generally coming into force from the 1970s-1990s. These days even countries which do allow a death penalty rarely use it.
When people discuss the pros and cons of the death penalty today, they generally argue in absolutist terms, e.g.: the risk of executing innocents, that the state shouldn’t kill its own citizens, lifetime incarceration is worse than the release of death etc. But clearly historical societies felt the death penalty *was* appropriate. So what changed in the mid-to-late 20th century to make countries favour abolishment?
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the main thing was a change in the philosophy behind ” just punishement”
many nations came ot the conclusion that if we are to honor the universal human right to life(as stated in the UN charter) we as a society should aim ot be better than the people we need ot incarcerate. killing the people we incarcerate isnt justice, its vengeance.
you also gotta consider that in many nations that abandoned Capital punishement they done so out of necessity due to lack of political and public will to continue the practice:
– Because its been proven that capital punishement doesnt work as a deterrent for violent crime.
– its not easy to give out capital punishement if you are forced to witness the realities behind it: this is why methods like firing squads , hanging, Beheading were phased out for methods deemed ” more humane”.
the ” humane” part here has nothing to do with the confort of the person being executed or their dignitiy, its about distancing the people issuing this punishement from the reality of what they are doing(killing someone, often in a gruesome way, but masked by the method).
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