Throughout the 19th century, and well on into the 20th, there was constant debate as to whether or not the death penally had any place in a supposedly civilised society.
The Norwood News, in its edition of Friday the 16th of March, 1928, provided some insights into the issue:-
PENALTY OF DEATH
ARGUMENTS FOR ITS ABOLOITION
WOULD MURDER INCREASE?
Stealing five shillings from a shop. Being armed in a rabbit warren. Pocket-picking. Associating with gipsies.
A hundred years ago the penalty for those offences was death in England.
Mr. E. Roy Calvert mentioned the fact in the course of an address he delivered on “The Abolition of the Death Penalty” at a meeting of st. Peter’s Literary Society, Tooting, on Monday.
Mr. Leonard Shepherd, J.P., presided.
WAS CAPITAL PUNISHMENT GOOD?
Mr. Calvert said that no one would maintain that capital punishment was good in itself.
People who considered that it was a horrible thing said that it was necessary for the protection of society and that without it there would be more murders.
This same cry about the protection of society was used to Justify the infliction of all sorts of barbarous punishments in the past.
Experience had shown that the discontinuance of those terrible penalties was accompanied by none of the evil consequences which their champions foretold.
One hundred years ago the English law recognised over 200 capital crimes.
UNFULFILLED PROPHECY
When, in 1810, an attempt was made to abolish capital punishment for small offences, the Bill was strongly opposed, and even the Lord Chief Justice of England, speaking in the House of Lords, asked their lordships to pause before assenting to the Bill, and characterised the measure as an experiment pregnant with danger to the security of property.
“Such,” he declared. “will be the consequences of the repeal of this statute that I am certain depredations to an unlimited extent will be immediately committed.”
The fears expressed by the Lord Chief Justice proved by experience to be quite groundless, and, instead of bringing an increase, there was a decrease in such offences.
The great improvement in the social life of the people had a lot to do with the diminution of crime, but the chance of conviction for capital offences just before the mitigation of the law was so slight, owing to the high percentage of commutations and the reluctance of Juries to convict so great, that professional criminals were said to prefer to be indicted capitally, because there was a much greater chance of escape!
DETERRING MURDER
Crimes against property were usually premeditated, whereas the majority of murders were the outcome of sudden passion.
The greatest deterrent was the certainty of punishment.
Capital punishment was not a real and complete deterrent because we still had about 160 murders annually in England and Wales.
MORE MURDERS WOULD FOLLOW
The defenders of capital punishment said that if it was abolished there would be more murders, or, in other words, there were plenty of potential murderers walking the streets who were longing to commit murder but were deterred by fear of hanging!
Capital punishment had already been abolished in many civilised countries of the world, and there had been no increase of murders in those countries, but a decrease.
INTENSE SUFFERRING
Capital punishment inflicted intense suffering upon the innocent relatives of the condemned person, and in no way alleviated the suffering of the murdered person’s friends.
It violated our belief in the sanctity of human life, and stood morally condemned, as the business of a Christian community was to redeem the offender.
THE ALTERNATIVE
Mr. Calvert said that the immediate alternative to capital punishment was a long term of imprisonment, not as an of ideal substitute, but as the next step in the general business of penal reform.