On The Nineteenth-century British Death Penalty Reform

Before the 19 th century,the death penalty system in Britain had many shortcomings.The convictions were in a huge number with a wide application of people,the punishment was unsuitable and had an unsatisfactory effect,so it was in urgent need of reform.In the 19 th century,Beccaria and Bentham had criticized the death penalty system from the perspective of social contract theory and utilitarian philosophy respectively,and advocated the abolition of the death penalty.There are multiple reasons to promote the reform of death penalty in Britain,among which the legal factors mainly include: the principle of crime balance and the proposal of humanitarianism have created theoretical conditions for the death penalty reform;the advancement of criminal procedure rules and the improvement of the appeal system have strengthened the protection of the criminal’s rights and objectively reduced the abuse of the death penalty.Under the influence of many factors,the reform of death penalty in Britain began at the beginning of the 19 th century.The reform of death penalty in Britain is carried out from two mainly aspects: one is to reduce the death penalty crimes,from the abolition of the death penalty for non-violent property crimes at the beginning,to the abolition of the death penalty for minor violent crimes,and finally to the abolition of the death penalty for serious violent crimes,until the 1860 s,there are only four death penalty crimes in Britain;The second is to abolish public executions.Britain has initially formed a modern penalty mode.The restriction of death penalty and the improvement of penalty execution mode inspire us to recognize the absolute meaning of the right to life,and to think about the purpose of penalty from a rational perspective.Penalty reform should be carried out step by step,and we should formulate scientific plans to limit the death penalty according to the urgency of problems,so as to alleviate the "pains" of evolution.