Introduction:
Death sentence is the officially allowed infliction of death as a penalty for violating criminal law. Right through history people have been put to death for a variety of forms of unlawful activity. Methods of execution have included such practices as crucifixion, stoning, drowning, burning at the stake, impaling, and beheading. In the present day capital punishment is typically accomplished by lethal gas or injection, electrocution, hanging, or shooting. The death penalty is the most controversial penal practice in the modern world. Other harsh, physical forms of criminal punishment referred to as corporal punishment have generally been eliminated in modern times as uncivilized and unnecessary. In the majority of countries, contemporary methods of punishment such as imprisonment or fines no longer involve the infliction of physical pain. Even though imprisonment and fines are universally recognized as necessary to the control of crime, the nations of the world are split on the issue of capital punishment. (Burleson, Elizabeth)
About 90 nations have abolished the death penalty and more or less equal numbers of nations (most of which are increasing countries) retain it. The trend in most developed nations has been to first stop executing prisoners and then to substitute long terms of imprisonment for death as the most severe of all criminal penalties. The United States is an important exception to this trend. The centralized government and a majority of U.S. states provide for the death penalty, and on average 75 executions occur each year throughout the United States. The practice of capital punishment is as old as government itself. For most of history, it has not been considered controversial. Since ancient times most governments have punished a wide variety of crimes by death and have conduced executions as a routine part of the administration of criminal law.
On the.......
