- The Oxford Handbooks in Criminology and Criminal Justice
- The Oxford Handbook of the History of Crime and Criminal Justice
- Contributors
- Introduction
- The Historiography of Crime and Criminal Justice
- The Crime Historian’s <i>Modi Operandi</i>
- Long-Term Trends in Crime: Continuity and Change
- Geography of Crime: Urban and Rural Environments
- Histories of Interpersonal Violence in Europe and North America, 1700–Present
- Ideas and Practices of Prostitution Around the World
- Forms of Crime: Crime and Retail Theft
- A Brief History of the Underworld and Organized Crime, c. 1750–1950
- Terrorism and Its Policing: Anarchists and the Era of Propaganda by the Deed, 1870s–1914
- Dreams and Nightmares: Drug Trafficking and the History of International Crime
- Violence and Masculinity
- Women and Crime, 1750–2000
- Policing Minorities
- Black Women, Criminal Justice, and Violence
- Crime News and the Press
- Crime, Criminology, and the Crime Genre
- Contested Spaces: On Crime Museums, Monuments, and Memorials
- A Historical Perspective on Crime Fiction in Mexico During the Middle Decades of the Twentieth Century
- The Rise of Criminology in its Historical Context
- Criminal Minds: Psychiatry, Psychopathology, and the Government of Criminality
- Continuity and Change: Russian and Early Soviet Criminology and the Criminal Woman
- Policing Before the Police in the Eighteenth Century: British Perspectives in a European Context
- The Origins of “Modern” Policing
- Detectives and Forensic Science: The Professionalization of Police Detection
- Police–Public Relations: Interpretations of Policing and Democratic Governance
- Crime and Policing in Wartime
- The Role of Popular Justice in U.S. History
- Popular Dramas Between Transgression and Order: Criminal Trials and Their Publics in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries in Global Perspective
- Mercy and Parole in Anglo-American Criminal Justice Systems from the Eighteenth Century to the Twenty-First Century
- Histories of Crime and Criminal Justice and the Historical Analysis of Criminal Law
- The Death Penalty
- The Rise and Fall of Penal Transportation
- The Mad, the Bad and the Pauper: Help and Control in Early Modern Carceral Institutions
- Histories of the Modern Prison: Renewal, Regression and Expansion
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
Although the death penalty often appears a timeless question, the last three centuries have witnessed dramatic changes in the frequency and organization of capital punishment in Europe and America. This essay examines the history of the death penalty and how it has reflected changing social and judicial ideas. The punishment became a target of intense complaint in the eighteenth century, which led to a dramatic decline in its use and its disappearance from public view. Yet while abolition excited passionate commitment, other groups remained committed to the retention of the death penalty, seeing it as vital to the security of society as well as a legitimate expression of a healthy emotion. The fortunes of abolition or retention have been shaped by political developments in particular nations at different times, and the penalty retains a unique ability to condense and channel powerful sentiments about the nature and goals of state power.
Keywords: death penalty, abolition, retention, execution, humanity, retribution
Randall McGowen is Professor of History at the University of Oregon.
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- The Oxford Handbooks in Criminology and Criminal Justice
- The Oxford Handbook of the History of Crime and Criminal Justice
- Contributors
- Introduction
- The Historiography of Crime and Criminal Justice
- The Crime Historian’s <i>Modi Operandi</i>
- Long-Term Trends in Crime: Continuity and Change
- Geography of Crime: Urban and Rural Environments
- Histories of Interpersonal Violence in Europe and North America, 1700–Present
- Ideas and Practices of Prostitution Around the World
- Forms of Crime: Crime and Retail Theft
- A Brief History of the Underworld and Organized Crime, c. 1750–1950
- Terrorism and Its Policing: Anarchists and the Era of Propaganda by the Deed, 1870s–1914
- Dreams and Nightmares: Drug Trafficking and the History of International Crime
- Violence and Masculinity
- Women and Crime, 1750–2000
- Policing Minorities
- Black Women, Criminal Justice, and Violence
- Crime News and the Press
- Crime, Criminology, and the Crime Genre
- Contested Spaces: On Crime Museums, Monuments, and Memorials
- A Historical Perspective on Crime Fiction in Mexico During the Middle Decades of the Twentieth Century
- The Rise of Criminology in its Historical Context
- Criminal Minds: Psychiatry, Psychopathology, and the Government of Criminality
- Continuity and Change: Russian and Early Soviet Criminology and the Criminal Woman
- Policing Before the Police in the Eighteenth Century: British Perspectives in a European Context
- The Origins of “Modern” Policing
- Detectives and Forensic Science: The Professionalization of Police Detection
- Police–Public Relations: Interpretations of Policing and Democratic Governance
- Crime and Policing in Wartime
- The Role of Popular Justice in U.S. History
- Popular Dramas Between Transgression and Order: Criminal Trials and Their Publics in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries in Global Perspective
- Mercy and Parole in Anglo-American Criminal Justice Systems from the Eighteenth Century to the Twenty-First Century
- Histories of Crime and Criminal Justice and the Historical Analysis of Criminal Law
- The Death Penalty
- The Rise and Fall of Penal Transportation
- The Mad, the Bad and the Pauper: Help and Control in Early Modern Carceral Institutions
- Histories of the Modern Prison: Renewal, Regression and Expansion
- Index
