Free Death Penalty Essays: Capital Punishment Around the World :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

Capital Punishment Essays - Capital Punishment Around the World The essay pans the whole world and presents the death penalty practices. In the last paragraph the paper focuses on the USA exclusively. Over half the countries in the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice: * 75 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes * 14 countries have abolished the death penalty for all but exceptional crimes such as wartime crimes * 20 countries can be considered abolitionist in practice: they retain the death penalty in law but have not carried out any executions for the past 10 years or more making a total of 109 countries which have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. 86 other countries retain and use the death penalty, but the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller.(Death) More than three countries a year on average have abolished the death penalty for all crimes in the past decade. Over 30 countries and territories have abolished the death penalty for all crimes since 1990. They include countries in Africa (examples include Angola, CÃ ´te d'Ivoire, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa), the Americas (Canada, Paraguay), Asia (Hong Kong, Nepal), Europe (Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland, Turkmenistan, Ukraine).(Ibid) Once abolished, the death penalty is seldom reintroduced. Since 1985, over 40 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or, having previously abolished it for ordinary crimes, have gone on to abolish it for all crimes. During the same period only four abolitionist countries reintroduced the death penalty. One of them, Nepal, which reintroduced the death penalty for murder, has since abolished it for all crimes; one, the Philippines, has resumed executions, but there have been no executions in the other two (Gambia, Papua New Guinea).(Should) During 2000, at least 1,457 prisoners were executed in 27 countries and 3,058 people were sentenced to death in 65 countries. In 2000, 88 per cent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the USA. In China, the limited and incomplete records available to Amnesty International at the end of the year indicated that at least 1,000 people were executed, but the true figure was believed to be much higher. In Saudi Arabia, 123 executions were reported, but the total may have been much higher. Eighty-five people were executed in the USA.