Capital Punishment In Twentieth Century Britain

Download or read book Capital Punishment in Twentieth-Century Britain written by Lizzie Seal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-05 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capital punishment for murder was abolished in Britain in 1965. At this time, the way people in Britain perceived and understood the death penalty had changed – it was an issue that had become increasingly controversial, high-profile and fraught with emotion. In order to understand why this was, it is necessary to examine how ordinary people learned about and experienced capital punishment. Drawing on primary research, this book explores the cultural life of the death penalty in Britain in the twentieth century, including an exploration of the role of the popular press and a discussion of portrayals of the death penalty in plays, novels and films. Popular protest against capital punishment and public responses to and understandings of capital cases are also discussed, particularly in relation to conceptualisations of justice. Miscarriages of justice were significant to capital punishment’s increasingly fraught nature in the mid twentieth-century and the book analyses the unsettling power of two such high profile miscarriages of justice. The final chapters consider the continuing relevance of capital punishment in Britain after abolition, including its symbolism and how people negotiate memories of the death penalty. Capital Punishment in Twentieth-Century Britain is groundbreaking in its attention to the death penalty and the effect it had on everyday life and it is the only text on this era to place public and popular discourses about, and reactions to, capital punishment at the centre of the analysis. Interdisciplinary in focus and methodology, it will appeal to historians, criminologists, sociologists and socio-legal scholars.

Download or read book Capital Punishment in Britain written by Richard Clark and published by Ian Allan Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capital punishment has played its part as the ultimate judicial penalty in the UK for centuries. This unique book meticulously examines the ominous origins of this horrific tradition, and the arguments behind society's final punishment. Often a macabre, graphic exercise in physical mutilation, capital punishment was once a highly popular form of entertainment for the masses, as well as serving the death penalty to murderers - man, woman and child alike. Within the pages of this chilling book, these condemned victims and the methods in which they met their plight come to life once more. The death penalty is examined in its different guises through the centuries, from execution methods pre-1800 by hanging - both individual and multiple, hanging, drawing and quartering for the charge of high treason, to other sickening alternatives which included burning, boiling alive and use of the dreaded Halifax gibbet, precursor to the Guillotine. Witches fell to watery graves through violent drownings, whilst damned women were often pressed slowly to death. Execution methods after 1800 are also examined, with reference to specific cases. Criminals were made to pay for their crimes by hanging in the drop gallows or being slowly hung, drawn and quartered, whilst in later decades during World War 1 and 2 soldiers and spies were mercilessly shot to death in the Tower of London. Other chapters examine the infamous places of public execution such as Tyburn and Newgate, the details of the legal acts involved such as The Bloody Code and The Black Acts, and the grotesque procedure for the execution of youths. Grisly post mortem punishments are revealed, where hapless victims were left gibbeting before being brutally dissected or anatomised. The role of the hangman and his assistants is studied, with the gory training procedures detailed. Modern developments are also taken into account, with an analysis of the reduction of executions with the introduction of railways, a chapter on 20th century executions and reprieves, as well as descriptions of the last executions in the UK, and the final abolition of capital punishment. Perfect for social historians and those with an interest in the macabre, or for anyone eager to discover the darker side of justice.

Download or read book Crime and Society in Twentieth Century England written by Clive Emsley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-08 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crime and Society in Twentieth-Century England traces the broad pattern of criminal offending over a hundred year period that experienced unprecedented levels of upheaval and change. This period included two world wars, the end of the British Empire, significant shifts in both gender relations and ethnic mix and a decline in the power of the economy. In this new textbook, Professor Clive Emsley provides an up-to-date assessment of changes in attitudes to crime as well as of the developments in policing, in the courts and in penal sanctions over the course of the century. He explores the impact of growing gender equality and ethnic diversity on crime and criminal justice, and looks at the way in which crime became increasingly central to political agendas in the last third of the century. Written in a clear and accessible manner, the book examines: Perceptions of crime and criminality across the century Varieties of offending from murder to benefit fraud The role of the media in constructing and reinforcing the understanding of crime and the criminal The decline and demise of corporal and capital punishment The shift from largely progressive to more punitive penal practice The first serious attempt to explore the history of crime and criminal justice in twentieth-century England, this book will be an invaluable introduction to the student and interested general reader alike.

Download or read book Blind Justice written by John J. Eddleston and published by ABC-CLIO. This book was released on 2000-05-26 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines 50 crimes where the accused was found guilty and either executed or sentenced to life imprisonment; in each case it is asserted that there was reasonable doubt, either as to the guilt or the sanity of the accused.

Download or read book Capital Punishment in Twentieth-Century Britain written by Lizzie Seal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-05 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Capital punishment for murder was abolished in Britain in 1965. At this time, the way people in Britain perceived and understood the death penalty had changed – it was an issue that had become increasingly controversial, high-profile and fraught with emotion. In order to understand why this was, it is necessary to examine how ordinary people learned about and experienced capital punishment. Drawing on primary research, this book explores the cultural life of the death penalty in Britain in the twentieth century, including an exploration of the role of the popular press and a discussion of portrayals of the death penalty in plays, novels and films. Popular protest against capital punishment and public responses to and understandings of capital cases are also discussed, particularly in relation to conceptualisations of justice. Miscarriages of justice were significant to capital punishment’s increasingly fraught nature in the mid twentieth-century and the book analyses the unsettling power of two such high profile miscarriages of justice. The final chapters consider the continuing relevance of capital punishment in Britain after abolition, including its symbolism and how people negotiate memories of the death penalty. Capital Punishment in Twentieth-Century Britain is groundbreaking in its attention to the death penalty and the effect it had on everyday life and it is the only text on this era to place public and popular discourses about, and reactions to, capital punishment at the centre of the analysis. Interdisciplinary in focus and methodology, it will appeal to historians, criminologists, sociologists and socio-legal scholars.

Download or read book Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth Century England written by Frank McLynn and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-06-17 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: McLynn provides the first comprehensive view of crime and its consequences in the eighteenth century: why was England notorious for violence? Why did the death penalty prove no deterrent? Was it a crude means of redistributing wealth?

Download or read book Reflections on Hanging written by Arthur Koestler and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2019-03-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reflections on Hanging is a searing indictment of capital punishment, inspired by its author’s own time in the shadow of a firing squad. During the Spanish Civil War, Arthur Koestler was held by the Franco regime as a political prisoner, and condemned to death. He was freed, but only after months of witnessing the fates of less-fortunate inmates. That experience informs every page of the book, which was first published in England in 1956, and followed in 1957 by this American edition. As Koestler ranges across the history of capital punishment in Britain (with a focus on hanging), he looks at notable cases and rulings, and portrays politicians, judges, lawyers, scholars, clergymen, doctors, police, jailers, prisoners, and others involved in the long debate over the justness and effectiveness of the death penalty. In Britain, Reflections on Hanging was part of a concerted, ultimately successful effort to abolish the death penalty. At that time, in the forty-eight United States, capital punishment was sanctioned in forty-two of them, with hanging still practiced in five. This edition includes a preface and afterword written especially for the 1957 American edition. The preface makes the book relevant to readers in the U.S.; the afterword overviews the modern-day history of abolitionist legislation in the British Parliament. Reflections on Hanging is relentless, biting, and unsparing in its details of botched and unjust executions. It is a classic work of advocacy for some of society’s most defenseless members, a critique of capital punishment that is still widely cited, and an enduring work that presaged such contemporary problems as the sensationalism of crime, the wrongful condemnation of the innocent and mentally ill, the callousness of penal systems, and the use of fear to control a citizenry.