Laws concerning physical punishment

• Capital punishment - execution by hanging not only for murder by also for less serious crimes
• Corporal punishment - included flogging, birching, branding with hot irons and being put in stocks
• overtime the number of offences carrying the death penalty was reduced
• Capital punishment was finally abolished in 1965
• Corporal punishment has also gradually disappeared - flogging in the armed forces was abolished in 1881 and all corporal punishment of offenders was abolished in 1967
• Capital punishment is now regarded as a breach of the most basic human right - the right to life
• The issue of miscarriages of justice had to be taken into account - nothing could be done if someone was found to be innocent after being given the death penalty
• the death penalty does not appear to at as a deterrent
• some writers argue that changes in the law are the result of a long-term decline in violence - physical punishment to control behaviour has gradually been replaced by self-control
• society has moved away from the idea of physical violence, as shown by the disappearance of spectacles like bear-baiting or public executions