Effectiveness Of The Death Penalty As A Means Of Reducing Crime

11 Pages 2738 Words

ment was originally forbidden altogether, but that ended in 1691 when William Penn’s Act of 1692 (Pennsylvania) allowed capital punishment only for murder and treason. (Bohm, pg. 1)
In the nineteenth century the use of the death penalty significantly increased. Executions rose by almost 60 percent from the entire seventeenth and eighteenth century. This increase spurred activities of anti-death penalty activists. Several abolitionist societies were founded, such as the American Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment in 1845. This prompted Pennsylvania to be the first state to hide executions from the public by requiring they be done in jails or prisons only. (Bohm, pg. 4) The last public execution was held in Galena, Missouri, in 1937. (Bohm, pg. 5) In 1846 Michigan abolished the death penalty for all crimes, except treason and made the penalty, life imprisonment. The first state to outlaw the death penalty for all crimes, including treason, was Rhode Island in 1852. (Bohm, pg. 5) Several states followed suit in the following years.
When the twentieth century arrived, a new age of reform began, called the Progressive Period. During this time many states outlawed capital punishment, as others were limiting the death penalty to only a few rarely committed crimes. During the Prohibition and the Great Depression (1920 –1940) the abolitionist movement fell on hard times. More capital offenders were executed during the 1930s than any other decade in American history. There was an average of 167 executions a year. The most occurred in 1935 when 199 offenders were put to death. Of the ten states that had abolished capital punishment for all crimes after 1850, only 3 had not restored the death penalty entering the 1950s. (Bohm, pg. 7) No state abolished the death penalty between 1918 and 1957. In contrast, after World War II, most of the advanced western European countries abolished the death penalty or sev...