Essay on Execution
Execution Term Papers
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The last public execution in England took place in 1868. The transition of penal practices from torturous public executions to less barbaric and somewhat more humane practices aroused many suspicions in historians. For a better understanding of such changes, one must focus on the ways historians have accounted for this fundamental change. Randall McGowen in his account focuses on the fact that society is becoming more civilized and illustrates the need for more civilized penal practices. Historian David D. Cooper claims that the people of the 1800 s sought reformation through political and literary intellects as well as through accounts of the massive crowds as a means to end public execution, lastly, historian V.A.C. Gattrell formulates his essay on the crowds and the outrageous uprisings that surrounded public executions. Public executions were to serve as a spectacle for all to see and instill fear of the might of the sovereign and therefore act as a deterrent for others to commit similar actions. A common belief that is still relevant today is that violence spawned violence. . Randall McGowen attempts to convey the fact that there was an inherent need in society to civilize punishment. Ending public execution and abolishing capital punishment altogether was the desired goal for criminal law reformers. They celebrated the prison as an institution that respected the body and sought to reach the soul of the offender. Conservatives on the other hand saw condemnation of public execution as a stalking horse for total abolition, which explains their long resistance to its termination.2 McGowen furthers the need for civilizing punishment by recounting the type of person(s) who attended public executions. The execution of a criminal for murder brought together only the very dregs of the population and it was impossible to induce respectable persons to be present, both friends and opponents of the death penalty agreed on this point. 3 Members of Parliament, wealthy lords, sheriffs and literary intellects such as Mill would never be found in attendance of a public execution. Unfortunately such barbaric displays of lawful murder lasted for over two decades, after all it was practically considered tradition. McGowen states that the crowds would laugh and mock the accused and even the hangman , but would never ever feel embarrassed at seeing the event. 4 Trials of the time were public and judgment was delivered in an open court, thus making the punishment , typically death, public as well. This made executions theatre like in that crowds of thousand would walk hundreds of miles just to attend. The death penalty was looked upon as a necessary requirement by society to protect itself from the kind of people that attended the gallows. McGowen clearly illustrates that those who attend then are no better than those about to be murdered, in that the are one and the same. Change was not only evident but also a necessity for the growing numbers of attendance to the gallows and the public outrage that coincided with the executions was rapidly increasing. Therefore, it is hard to view the legislation of 1868 in any other light than as a victory for humanity. 5 By this account then the point McGowen is attempting to convey is that society has an ever-growing need to become more civilized and therefore a direct need for more civilized penal practices. With civilization comes humanitarian which resulted in the end but not the abolishment of public execution. Historian David D. Cooper, like McGowen emphasized the beliefs in public executions of the era, If English law was public, as a safeguard against government tyranny, then its punishment must also be public. 6 Reformers underlying movement was not just to end public execution but rather to abolish it altogether. Evidence of this is found in Cooper s essay, the first recorded dissent in parliament against public executions occurred in 1819, but the real movement to abolish them began in the Victorian period when a group of radicals sought to totally abolish capital punishment. 7 Cooper acknowledges that the working class were not alone in their fascination with crime and criminals Crowds swarmed into Newgate on foot, by omnibuses and by the Metropolitan Underground Railway...while vendors hawking chestnuts, oranges, hot potatoes and greasy pastries, moved loudly among them. 8
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