E X T E N S I O N THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE U.K. In the course of history man has always shown an amazing resourcefulness1 in devising methods of punishment; the death penalty itself assumed different forms in different ages.About 450 BC, the death penalty was often enforced by throwing the condemned into a quagmire2. By the 10th century, hanging from gallows3 was the most frequent execution method. During the Middle Ages, capital punishment was accompanied by torture. Most barons had a drowning pit as well as gallows and they were used for major as well as minor crimes. Burning was the punishment for women s high treason or for marrying a Jew and men were hanged, drawn and quartered. Beheading4 was generally accepted for the upper classes. Under the reign of Henry VIII, the numbers of those put to death are estimated as high as 72,000. In Britain, the number of capital offences continually increased until the 1700 s when two hundred and twenty-two crimes were punishable by death under the so-called Bloody Code . Then reforms began to take place: Samuel Romilly started to introduce the first reforms against death penalty in 1808. Between 1832-34 Parliament abolished the death penalty for shoplifting goods worth five shillings or less, for returning from transportation, for letterstealing and sacrilege. Gibbeting5 where executed corpses were displayed publicly in cages was abolished in 1843. In 1861, the number of capital crimes was reduced to four: murder, treason, arson6 in royal dockyards and piracy with violence. Public executions stopped in 1868 and the hanging, beheading and quartering of traitors ended in 1870. The Labour Government created a Royal Commission on the death penalty in 1948. The Conservative Government came up with compromise legislation in 1957. This compromise legislation the Homicide Act 1957 followed growing public disquiet over the hangings of Timothy Evans in 1950, Derek Bentley in 1953 and Ruth Ellis, the last woman executed, in 1955. The Homicide Act 1957 made a distinction between capital and non-capital murder. In practice, it created a series of disastrous anomalies, for example, murder in the course of theft was punishable by death, while murder in the course of rape7 was not, placing a higher 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. gibbet: esporre i cadaveri dei condannati a morte. 6. arson: incendio doloso. 7. rape: stupro. resourcefulness: ingegnosità. quagmire: pantano, acquitrino. gallows: forca. behead: decapitare. 138