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AngelaProject 12 - 27 Nov 2009 - Main.AngelaChen
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-- AngelaChen - 08 Nov 2009 | | | Regulation of capital punishment in early America was, as one would expect, heavily influenced by its counterpart in England. However, even from the start one could note differences between the colonies, and notable divergence between the North and South in the type and range of crimes that were capitalized and later also the stance regarding abolition. | |
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> | Crimes that were typically punished by death at the time were murder and treason (which were prosecuted as capital offences in every colony at least for a certain period), rape, robbery, arson and capital cases of perjury (in most colonies), while the following were only subject to the death penalty in some: adultery, sodomy, bestiality, witchcraft and blasphemy).
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| | | The 'death penalty' was carried out chiefly in the form of hangings both in England and America at the time (although there were, as Banner notes, other forms of execution 'worse than death' reserved for the most abominable crimes); it was the form of execution which required the least in terms of equipment and prowess. What hangings lacked in technical expertise, however, they more than made up for in ceremony.
The public nature of executions facilitated many of the purposes of the death penalty, such as deterrence and retribution (explored further in 'Utilitarianism and Philosophy', below). Shifts in attitude in these respects, together with wider social changes and key developments such as the advent of prisons, may help us answer the question which this paper poses.
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