death penalty dissertation uk

Arguing for the Death Penalty: Making the Retentionist Case in Britain, 1945-1979

--> Wright, Thomas (2010) Arguing for the Death Penalty: Making the Retentionist Case in Britain, 1945-1979. MA by research thesis, University of York.

There is a small body of historiography that analyses the abolition of capital punishment in Britain. There has been no detailed study of those who opposed abolition and no history of the entire post-war abolition process from the Criminal Justice Act 1948 to permanent abolition in 1969. This thesis aims to fill this gap by establishing the role and impact of the retentionists during the abolition process between the years 1945 and 1979. This thesis is structured around the main relevant Acts, Bills, amendments and reports and looks briefly into the retentionist campaign after abolition became permanent in December 1969. The only historians to have written in any detail on abolition are Victor Bailey and Mark Jarvis, who have published on the years 1945 to 1951 and 1957 to 1964 respectively. The subject was discussed in some detail in the early 1960s by the American political scientists James Christoph and Elizabeth Tuttle. Through its discussion of capital punishment this thesis develops the themes of civilisation and the permissive society, which were important to the abolition discourse. Abolition was a process that was controlled by the House of Commons. The general public had a negligible impact on the decisions made by MPs during the debates on the subject. For this reason this thesis priorities Parliamentary politics over popular action. This marks a break from the methodology of the new political histories that study ‘low’ and ‘high’ politics in the same depth.

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Death Penalty Research Unit

Esrc research project on drug offences in southeast asia.

In 2022, the Death Penalty Research Unit began a new three-year project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), ' Mapping the Political Economy of Drugs and the Death Penalty in Southeast Asia '. Conducted in collaboration with the Death Penalty Project, this project will test the veracity of assumptions about who is convicted of drug offences in the region and investigate the deterrent effect of the death penalty.

The Death Penalty Research Unit (DPRU) is housed within the Oxford Centre for Criminology and is led by Professor Carolyn Hoyle . 

Contact us:

Email: [email protected]

Twitter/X: @DPRUOxford

The Death Penalty Research Unit has three main aims:

(a) to develop empirical, theoretical and policy-relevant research on the death penalty worldwide; (b) to encourage death penalty scholarship including at graduate level, through education, events, research dissemination and an active blog; and (c) to engage in knowledge production, exchange and dissemination in cooperation with civil society, charities, legal practitioners, policy-makers and local academics in those countries where research is ongoing.

Part of the Oxford Centre’s Global Criminal Justice Hub , the DPRU focuses on the retention, administration and politics of the death penalty worldwide. We aim to understand the rationales for the death penalty, how it is used in practice, and its diverse application and impact on communities.

We are committed to working with our partners in various regions on collaborative production and dissemination of empirical and theoretical knowledge. This work is not only aimed at elucidating the law and practice of capital punishment worldwide, but at challenging it, with the explicit aim of abolition or, failing that, progressive restriction.

The DPRU is led by  Professor Carolyn Hoyle . It builds on the strong foundations laid by the late  Professor Roger Hood , Director of the Centre for Criminology from 1973 to 2003. Much of our work is done in partnership with  The Death Penalty Project , a London-based legal action charity with many years of experience of litigation, capacity building and research.

The DPRU also collaborates with partner organisations and academics in the countries we work in; building on their research aspirations, training ‘local’ researchers in a range of research methodologies, and sharing in the production and dissemination of outputs. In so doing, we seek to ensure that our research has an impact on governments, civil society, legal practitioners and those who are subject to criminal justice systems, while also assisting in the development of scholarship in these regions.

The DPRU honours Robert Badinter (1928-2024)

Dpru research students selected as john robert lewis fellows, dpru research associate professor jon yorke’s legal advocacy against scheduled nitrogen gas execution in alabama, related blogs, treason and the death penalty in sub-saharan africa, dpru q&as: fulgence massawe, legal and human rights centre (lhrc) tanzania, two damnable trilogies: the u.s. supreme court’s jurisprudence on ‘method-of-execution’ challenges and resultant botched and failed executions in alabama, the politics behind uganda’s anti-homosexuality act, the death penalty and scrupulous respect for the right to a fair trial, related content.

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Criminological Research and the Death Penalty: Has Research by Criminologists Impacted Capital Punishment Practices?

• Published: 16 April 2019
• Volume 44 , pages 536–580, ( 2019 )

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• Gordon P. Waldo 1 &
• Wesley Myers 1  

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At the request of the SCJA president this paper addresses five questions. Does criminological research make a difference relative to the death penalty? - If criminological research does make a difference, what is the nature of that difference? - What specific instances can one cite of research findings influencing death penalty policy decisions? Why hasn’t our research made more of a difference? What can we do, either in terms of directing our research or in terms of disseminating it, to facilitate it making a difference? Specific examples of research directly impacting policy are examined. The evidence presented suggests that research on capital punishment has had some impact on policy, but not nearly enough. There is still a high level of ignorance that has limited the impact of criminological research on death penalty policy. The proposed solution is to improve the education of the general public and decision makers in order to increase the impact of criminological research on capital punishment policy.

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Public Sector Criminological Research

Effective Probation in England and Wales? The Rise and Fall of Evidence

Making a Difference in Criminology: Past, Present, and Future

Thomas G. Blomberg

One of the most interesting things the senior author learned in his first statistics class as an undergraduate, which became much clearer when he took his first graduate research methods class, was that if a correlation exists between two variables it does not automatically mean that one of the variables caused the other variable. This is true even if the one that appeared to be the cause (independent variable) met the first criteria for causation and occurred prior to the presumed effect (dependent variable). As he began to teach the first research methods course ever taught in the Criminology Program at Florida State University he also learned about extraneous variables, intervening variables, component variables, antecedent variables, suppressor variables, distorter variables, spurious non-correlations, conditional relationships, conjoint influence, etc. (Rosenberg, 1968 ). These different types of variables will not be discussed, but their existence has relevance in trying to answer the questions posed to the panelists. Instead, reference will be made to ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ influences in this paper because each can be important in bringing about change.

Two other methods the courts have used in this regard is the number of states that have made a significant change in their death penalty statutes, such as the number of states changing the age for execution of juveniles (Thompson v. Oklahoma, 1988 ) . Another method the United States Supreme Court has used is international opinions. “It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion …. The opinion of the world community, while not controlling our outcome, does provide respected and significant confirmation for our own conclusions” (Roper v. Simmons, 2005 p.11).

Warden describes the first exoneration as follows. “The first of what would become a cavalcade of post-Furman Illinois death row exonerations occurred in 1987 when a young prosecutor, Michael Falconer, came forward with exculpatory evidence that exonerated two condemned Chicagoans, Perry Cobb and Darby Tillis. It is hard to imagine more fortuitous or improbable events than those that led to the exonerations of Cobb and Tillis, who had been sentenced to death for a double murder that occurred a decade earlier.’ In 1983, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed and remanded their case because the trial judge had rejected a defense request to give the jury an accomplice instruction. The prosecution’s star witness, Phyllis Santini, had driven the getaway car used in the crime - admittedly but, she claimed, unwittingly. Chicago Lawyer , an investigative publication … carried a detailed article based on the Illinois Supreme Court opinion and case file. As luck would have it, Falconer, who recently had graduated from law school, read the article, which discussed Santini’s testimony in some depth. Years earlier, Falconer had worked with Santini at a factory and, as he would testify, she had told him that her boyfriend had committed a murder and that she and the boyfriend were working with police and prosecutors to pin it on someone else. “I thought to myself, ‘Jeez, there’s a name from the past,”‘Falconer reflected in a Chicago Lawyer interview. “I read on and started thinking, ‘Holy shit, this is terrible.”‘He called a defense lawyer mentioned in the article, reporting what Santini had told him. At an ensuing bench trial in 1987, Cobb and Tillis were acquitted by a directed verdict on the strength of Falconer’s testimony.” By then, Falconer was a prosecutor in a neighboring jurisdiction.” Cobb and Tillis eventually received gubernatorial pardons based on innocence. As serendipitous as the Cobb and Tillis exonerations” were, they were no more so than many that would follow. … (there were) 20 Illinois death row exonerations -each involving odds-defying fortuity. The error rate among 305 convictions under the 1977 Illinois capital punishment statute was in excess of 6% (Warden, 2012 p. 247–248).

Justice Marshall was careful to fully support his position surrounding the lack of a deterrent effect of the death penalty with two lengthy ‘laundry lists’ of research in the footnotes of his published opinion which are abbreviated here. “See, e. g., Jon Peck, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Ehrlich and His Critics, 85 Yale L. J. 359 (1976); David Baldus & James Cole, A Comparison of the Work of Thorsten Sellin and Isaac Ehrlich on the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment, 85 Yale L. J. 170 (1975); William Bowers & Glenn Pierce, The Illusion of Deterrence in Isaac Ehrlich’s Research on Capital Punishment, 85 Yale L. J. 187 (1975); Issac Ehrlich. The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: A Question of Life and Death, 65 Am. Econ. Rev. 397 (June 1975); Hook, The Death Sentence, in The Death Penalty in America 146 (Hugo Adam Bedau ed. 1967); Thurston Sellin, The Death Penalty, A Report for the Model Penal Code Project of the American Law Institute (1959).” And “See Passell & Taylor, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Another View (unpublished Columbia University Discussion Paper 74–7509, Mar. 1975), reproduced in Brief for Petitioner App. E in Jurek v. Texas, O. T. 1975, No. 75–5844; Passell, The Deterrent Effect of the Death Penalty: A Statistical Test, 28 Stan. L. Rev. 61 (1975); Baldus & Cole, A Comparison of the Work of Thorsten Sellin & Isaac Ehrlich on the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment, 85 Yale L. J. 170 (1975); Bowers & Pierce, The Illusion of Deterrence in Isaac Ehrlich’s Research on Capital Punishment, 85 Yale L. J. 187 (1975); Peck, The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment: Ehrlich and His Critics, 85 Yale L. J. 359 (1976). See also Ehrlich, Deterrence: Evidence and Inference, 85 Yale L. J. 209 (1975); Ehrlich, Rejoinder, 85 Yale L. J. 368 (1976)… See also Bailey, Murder and Capital Punishment: Some Further Evidence, 45 Am. J. Orthopsychiatry 669 (1975); W. Bowers, Executions in America 121–163 (1974).”

This only happened once with a legislator who was in favor of the death penalty and opposed to abortion. I later learned from other lobbyist’s that he was known as a ‘weird duck’ and they tried to stay away from him. Fortunately, he is no longer in the legislature.

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Waldo, G.P., Myers, W. Criminological Research and the Death Penalty: Has Research by Criminologists Impacted Capital Punishment Practices?. Am J Crim Just 44 , 536–580 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-019-09478-4

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Capital Punishment in the UK Should be Reintroduced? Essay

Introduction, arguments for capital punishment, references used.

‘Capital Punishment’ or the ‘Death Penalty’ is the judicially ordered, lawful infliction of death as a punishment for a serious crime called a ‘capital offence’ or a ‘capital crime. The issue of Capital Punishment has come under increasing global spotlight during the last 5 decades. There have been several arguments for and against Capital Punishment, with some countries abolishing it and others retaining it.

The U.K falls under the former category, albeit having being among the latter category until 1964. (Clark). It is my contention that Capital Punishment is mandatory to ensure keeping the individual and society’s faith in law and the legal system thereby making our country a better and safer living place; the U.K should therefore reintroduce Capital Punishment as soon as possible.

Incapacitation of the criminal

Capital Punishment permanently removes the worst criminals from society. People like Beverley Allitt and the perpetrators of the Hungerford and Dunblane massacres do not deserve to live. Death permanently incapacitates such monsters and prevents them from committing any offences either within prison or after escaping or being released from prison (Clark). Life imprisonment , is too devoid of good sense for such evil, sick and barbaric psychopaths.

If they are not executed, they will use every possible escape route to get off (e.g. plea bargaining, citing grounds of alleged psychiatric disorders, intimidating key witnesses). Even life without parole sentences will only incite prisoners to kill staff or inmates or take hostages in a bid to escape. Moreover, there is no guarantee that future governments will not liberate such offenders (Clark).

Joseph de Maistre, a French diplomat hit it absolutely right even as early as the eighteenth century when he said: “All grandeur, all power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner: he is the horror and the bond of human association. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears” (Studyworld.com).

Capital Punishment is economically correct

Life imprisonment is expensive. By helping to reduce the social costs of criminal activity as well as the apprehension and conviction costs for crime, Capital Punishment saves the money of the State and its taxpayers – such money that can be used on the more genuinely needy. In the U.K, it costs £ 700 a week at present for an ordinary prisoner, which works out to more than £ 500,000 for a typical 15-year life sentence. Similarly, life without parole (LWOP) only increases the expenses of the State (Clark).

Just retribution is delivered

The present justice scenario displays more allegiance for condemned convicts than it does for their victims. By adopting Capital Punishment, the fundamental principle of justice, namely, ‘the punishment should fit the crime’ is upheld (Messerli). Society still views murder as a particularly heinous crime that should justify the most severe punishment. Capital Punishment is a just punishment based on the vengeance principle of “lex talens” – one that is also advocated under Leviticus in the Bible. A criminal has taken the life or lives of other human beings, and it is only just and proper that his or her life be taken away in retribution (Clark). Aristotle also echoes this view advocating “giving each his due”, interpreted as “that the worst crime be punished with society’s worst penalty” (Morley).

Deterrence is created

Capital Punishment serves as an active deterrent to others. Crime would grow wildly and unchecked, blossoming into an uncontrollable menace if there is no way to discourage people from perpetrating crimes. Life imprisonment is a soft deterrent; for most hardened criminals, more is needed. For those criminals who already in prison, the threat of their sentence being upgraded to Death Row will deter them from committing murder while in prison or if they manage to escape and engage in an extravagant crime/murder activity (Messerli)

The victim’s family feels vindicated

Capital Punishment provides a sense of finality, of at last coming to terms with a bad experience to the victims’ families who undergo a tremendous amount of suffering and anguish. These family members have been made orphans, widows and childless all due to the barbaric action of a psychopath. It may even take decades for some of them to get over the sudden, powerful and intensely distressing loss of their loved one; for some of them, full recovery may never take place. Capital Punishment brings closure to an extremely unpleasant experience in the lives of the family members of victims (Messerli).

Life imprisonment is worse than Capital Punishment

From convicts’ point of view, the quick death provided by Capital Punishment is often much better than the long term of life imprisonment characterised by hard labour. This feeling is particularly strong if the convicts are young; they face the daunting prospect of spending year after interminable year in a literal living tomb, carrying out extremely difficult and monotonous labour with no hope of let up or reward for their efforts (Morley). There is also the danger of physical harm from fellow vicious prison inmates including beating, mugging and rape.

Good effect on society

Capital Punishment makes people realise that it is not easy to get away with crime in general and high profile crime in particular. The long arm of the law is definitely around to catch them, the justice system is there to convict them and Capital Punishment is waiting to execute those that deserve that punishment. The tremendous amount of media coverage for such executions, plus the tendency of people turning up in large numbers to witness executions (Clark).

Documents of authority implicitly or explicitly allow for Capital Punishment

Many documents guaranteeing the right to life either directly or indirectly make allowances for Capital Punishment. The Christian Bible recommends Capital Punishment for crimes of murder, kidnapping and witchcraft (Clark). The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights declares: “No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life. In countries that have not abolished the Death Penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes” The American Convention for Human Rights states: “Every person has the right to have his life respected. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of life (emphasis added)”, signifying the document does not prevent all taking of human life by the government, just that which is arbitrary (Morley).

There is no possibility of mistake

Pro-Capital Punishment advocators refute allegations that innocent people are frequently executed by saying that the trails and appeals system is so careful that the chances of convicting innocent persons are virtually non-existent. Secondly, DNA testing can now scientifically and officially remove any doubts about whether a person is innocent or guilty. Even after the above two precautions, there is a third safeguard: the jury; it is mandatory for a jury of 12 members to unanimously pronounce a person guilty (Messerli).

Empirical evidence

In the modern day scenario, empirical evidence points to the fact that Capital Punishment is the only real and effective way to combat the rise of crime. In the U.S., the murder rate dropped from 24,562 in 1993 to 18,209 in 1997 and 15,600 in 2003. In Singapore, which also practises Capital Punishment, the number of people executed dropped from 7 in 1995 to 4 in 1996, 3 in 1997 and just 1 in 1998.

On the other hand Britain, which abolished the Death Penalty in 1964, has witnessed a steadily rising murder rate which increased by more than 100 percent from 0.68 to 1.42 per 100,000 of the population. The rate was 300 before 1964, rose to 565 in 1994 and 833 in 2004. Ominously, between 1965 and 1998, 71 murders were committed by people released from prison after serving life sentences. Most significantly, the overall public view in the U.K is strongly in favour of reinstating Capital Punishment (Clark).

Capital Punishment is not a new phenomenon in the U.K. It existed as far back as 1500 when it was used to punish criminals committing murder, theft, rape, arson and treachery. After a decade and a half following the passing of the Waltham Black Acts in 1723 advocating Capital Punishment for capital offences, the following century witnessed nearly 9,000 civilian executions in England and Wales.

In current times, the U.K is being hampered from reintroducing Capital Punishment by two restraints: the first is the European Union, which does not have member nations that practice Capital Punishment, and does not permit members to adopt the practice; the second is the fact that reinstating an abolished practice is always harder than introducing a new practice or measure (Clark). Robert Matthews, a journalist for ‘Focus’ magazine wrote: “Some people argue that the absence of Capital Punishment in this country is the mark of a civilised society. I believe we are rapidly becoming uncivilised. Some of the things that happen on our streets and in people’s homes certainly do not constitute civilised behaviour” (Studyworld.com).

In the light of the above arguments and the supporting empirical evidence, Capital Punishment should be reintroduced in the U.K. We should prepare the framework in society from grass roots level to support Capital Punishment, starting by introducing stricter rules to first instill proper disciple in wayward children at school and on the streets, and then moving on to tackle young ruffians , and finally going on to tackle older thugs.

We can thus spawn a generation or two of people who adhere to socially acceptable patterns of behaviour. It is noteworthy that Singapore, which uses Capital Punishment, has strict disciplinary regulations at all levels of society ; as a result, it boasts of one of the lowest crime figures in the world (Clark).

Reintroducing Capital Punishment in the U.K would not only be effective in deterring the most heinous crimes against humanity, but also in deterring the most feared modern day criminals: international terrorists. International terrorism, spearheaded by the dreaded Al Qaeda headed by Osama Bin Laden, has burst onto the international scene as never before since the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. Since then, it has wrecked havoc in different parts of the world .

Members of Al Qaeda and its network of international terrorist organisations deserve the strongest possible punishment from all countries, and there can be nothing better, nothing that will send a stronger message to these dastardly criminals, than Capital Punishment.

• Clark, Richard. “Arguments For and Against Capital Punishment.” Capitalpunishmentuk.org. (N.d). Web.
• “Debate over Capital Punishment – A Pro Stance.” Studyworld. 2004. Web.
• Messerli, Joe. “Should the Death Penalty be banned as a Form of Punishment?” Balancedpolitics. 2007. Web.
• Morley. “At the Edge of the Oath”. Princeton. 1998. Web.
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 11). Capital Punishment in the UK Should be Reintroduced? https://ivypanda.com/essays/capital-punishment-in-the-uk-should-be-reintroduced/

"Capital Punishment in the UK Should be Reintroduced?" IvyPanda , 11 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/capital-punishment-in-the-uk-should-be-reintroduced/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Capital Punishment in the UK Should be Reintroduced'. 11 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Capital Punishment in the UK Should be Reintroduced?" March 11, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/capital-punishment-in-the-uk-should-be-reintroduced/.

1. IvyPanda . "Capital Punishment in the UK Should be Reintroduced?" March 11, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/capital-punishment-in-the-uk-should-be-reintroduced/.

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NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

Is this the worst handball decision ever? Referee slammed for penalty shambles

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Rotherham manager Leam Richardson was left perplexed by referee Geoff Eltringham’s decision to award West Brom a penalty in the Baggies’ 2-0 win over the already-relegated Millers at the Hawthorns.

Brandon Thomas-Asante had handed the promotion-chasing hosts a 23rd-minute lead before Eltringham pointed to the spot when the striker’s shot struck Lee Peltier, though replays showed he was outside the box and the ball appeared to strike his face.

John Swift netted the resulting penalty in first-half stoppage time to settle the Championship fixture.

Richardson said: ‘I’ve not seen that before. The assistant was maybe 10 yards away looking down the line of it. Then he goes and books my assistant manager (Rob Kelly) for telling him ‘the linesman can help’.

‘It was a wrong decision, and a poor one in my opinion. It changed the full outcome of the game.

‘The first goal we gave away was poor, but then I thought the second one changed the whole complex.

‘Someone said in another interview that those decisions go against you when you’re down there, but that’s a disgusting way of looking at it. You should have a consistency of professionalism regardless.

It’s been a tough season for Rotherham United but this penalty decision against West Brom last night must have been tough to take 😫 Watch @EFL Highlights now on @ITVX 📺 pic.twitter.com/qtMSE6PcZx — ITV Football (@itvfootball) April 11, 2024

I never question anyone’s integrity, but I can’t explain that decision. We’ve had a number of similar decisions and apology letters, but I have no interest in that. You can’t get those decisions wrong.’

Asked if he would report the match officials, Richardson said: ‘What? And get another apology letter?’

Richardson’s opposing number Carlos Corberan, who has guided West Brom into fifth and nine points clear of the chasing pack with four matches left to play, said he had not seen a replay of the incident.

‘I didn’t see the action back,’ he said. ‘I knew from the level of the protests from the players and the staff, I understood that there was no doubt that it was the wrong decision. In these situations, you always want fair decisions.

‘Later in the game there was another decision, maybe a foul on Asante inside the box, that the referee didn’t whistle. If the referee did something wrong, he can, let’s say, compensate for this, but during the year, unfortunately the referees haven’t had the support to guarantee the right or wrong decisions. Live, they need to make quick decisions.

‘Sometimes they make mistakes because everyone does. It happens in your favour sometimes, sometimes not. We have, this year, received a lot of wrong decisions against us, which we don’t want in the same way we don’t want any type of advantage in the decision.

‘If the action wasn’t a penalty, it’s a pity, but hopefully it’s a compensation of something that we have suffered from before.’

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