Should We Bring Back the Death Penalty?

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[00:00:03.16] - Oliver (Host)

Imagine this: it's a beautiful Saturday morning in London. You wake up early, you pack a picnic basket, you grab some friends or family, and you head to the town square. There's no football, no theatre, no concert. But there's something else that you consider equally exciting. You're going to watch a man die. Because we're talking about London in the 1700s, and executions were considered entertainment. Yes, executions. In the UK, this often meant hanging, a real person in front of you, struggling to breathe, the rope tight around his neck. And what's more shocking? You are not the only one who decided to make this into an interesting daytime activity. Thousands of people are there with you. Children are sitting on shoulders to get a better look. There are small businessmen offering snacks and gin. There are people laughing, chatting, booing. It's loud, it's chaotic, it's almost festive. By today's standards, it's also horrifying. But at the time, it was normal. Public executions were both a warning and a spectacle. It was a bit like a Roman gladiator fight, or maybe even a very violent TV drama. But why did we love watching executions? And how did Britain go from literally cheering at the gallows to abolishing the death penalty completely?

[00:01:43.26] - Oliver (Host)

Before we carry on please consider hitting follow or subscribe. It makes a huge difference to the growth of the podcast, and it helps you get updates that will help you improve your English with episodes about interesting topics like this one. And in fact, I guess I should introduce the podcast, Welcome Back to English and Beyond, the podcast for intermediate English learners who want more than grammar, who want real ideas, rich vocabulary, and big questions in clear, comprehensible English. There's a free transcript and free flashcards available online at morethanalanguage.com. My name is Oliver, and today we're exploring the history of capital punishment in in the UK.

[00:02:31.29] - Oliver (Host)

From gruesome public hangings to a quiet abolition, it's a history full of drama, mistakes, and change. We're also going to take a quick look at how the death penalty is used today around the rest of the world, because yes, it still exists in many places. But Britain took a long, strange road before saying goodbye. Capital punishment today. Let's start with the world as it is. More than 50 countries still use the death penalty. Some of the biggest contributors to the stats are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States.

[00:03:14.17] - Oliver (Host)

In some of these countries, people can be executed for crimes like murder, drug trafficking, or even political protest. In contrast, Europe has almost completely abolished the death penalty. (The) European Union has banned capital punishment, as has Britain. Most of Latin America has prohibited it, too. Still, in 2025, surveys show that around 40 to 50% of people living in the UK say they would support bringing it back, at least for the worst crimes. That number is higher than in many other European countries. So it's clear that there is still an enthusiasm in the UK for the death penalty. But if that's the case, why was it banned in the first place? Let's go back. In the 1700s, Britain had what was called the Bloody Code. Code, in this context, refers to a collection of laws. More than 200 crimes, including stealing sheep or cutting down trees, could get you hanged. And executions were public events. The reason that, apparently, minor small offences could result in your death was because the laws were written by the rich who would be inconvenienced by many of these crimes. The upper classes therefore sought, they therefore attempted, to make the consequences of these crimes so awful that the poorer members of society would be scared into obeying them.

[00:04:49.52] - Oliver (Host)

So, let's imagine the scene: a wooden platform, a rope, and a huge crowd. The prisoner climbs the steps. A hood is placed over his head. The noose is tightened around his neck. And then, silence in the crowd before the trap door opens. But this wasn't a sad moment for these people. As I said at the beginning of the podcast, the crowd cheered. People sold snacks, some brought beer. It was a day out for the crowds. And hanging certainly wasn't the worst method. If you committed treason, betraying the king or queen, you could be hanged, drawn, and quartered. That meant first being hanged until nearly dead, then cut open, and finally, your body would be cut into four different pieces and sent to different cities. It was brutal, but it was meant to be brutal. Women who were found guilty of serious crimes like treason could be burned at the stake. This means tied to a large wooden post, a stake, and burned alive, slowly in front of a crowd. All of this was about fear. It was a message, "Don't break the law." But it was also clearly about public entertainment. Over time, people started to feel uncomfortable. Writers, like Charles Dickens, described the horror of watching a man die in front of a drunken crowd. In 1868, public executions were banned. Hanging continued, but now inside prisons.

[00:06:34.22] - Oliver (Host)

Reform and resistance. In the 19th century, the number of crimes punished by death slowly decreased. By 1861, only five crimes could lead to execution: murder, treason, espionage (that is, spying), piracy with violence, and arson in royal dockyards. Arson is deliberately setting things on fire as a criminal act. The next major step came in 1957 with the Homicide Act. Not all murderers were executed anymore. Only those who killed police officers, used explosives, or murdered while committing another crime, like robbery. It was a compromise between tradition and reform, but public opinion was changing fast, especially after a few major cases. While researching this episode, I came across three major cases that resulted in a change to the law.

[00:07:35.47] - Oliver (Host)

Case 1: Timothy Evans, 1950. A man was hanged for killing his own wife and baby, but later it turned out that he was almost certainly innocent. The real killer was his neighbour, a serial killer named John Christie, who actually acted as a witness for the prosecution during the trial.

[00:07:58.06] - Oliver (Host)

Case 2: Derek Bentley, 1953. A young man with learning difficulties was hanged for a murder his friend committed. Bentley never pulled the trigger, but his friend, who was too young to hang, went to prison, and Bentley was executed.

[00:08:16.59] - Oliver (Host)

Case 3, Ruth Ellis, 1955. Ruth Ellis was the last woman executed in Britain. She shot her abusive boyfriend. The law was clear: she had to hang. But the public reaction was one of shock. These cases changed minds. Suddenly, it seemed like execution was not a clear route to justice anymore.

[00:08:41.43] - Oliver (Host)

Abolition. In 1965, Parliament voted to suspend the death penalty for murder for five years. It was a test. What would happen if we stopped? The answer: not much. Despite some people's fears, society didn't collapse. Crime didn't rise. In 1969, capital punishment for murder was formerly abolished in Britain. A few other crimes, like treason, still technically had the death penalty, but no one was executed for them. And these were finally removed from the law in 1998. The last executions in Britain took place in 1964, when two men were hanged on the same day. The last woman was Ruth Ellis in 1955.

[00:09:32.04] - Oliver (Host)

Britain has also signed treaties promising never to bring the death penalty back. But what was the rest of Europe doing while Britain was hanging people? Well, France used the guillotine, a very heavy blade that chopped off the head quickly, and that was used up until 1977. Spain, meanwhile, used the garrote, a machine that slowly crushed the neck. This was still being used in the 1970s under dictator Franco. Germany banned the death penalty after World War II. West Germany's Constitution made it illegal in 1949, but East Germany used it secretly until the 1980s. But by the '90s, almost all of Europe had abolished capital punishment. So the question, should it come back? Even though it's banned, some people wish that we could punish certain crimes with execution. Polls show that about half of British people support it, especially for what is perceived as the worst crimes, like terrorism or child murder. Supporters say it gives justice to victims, that it saves money, and that it stops future crime by acting as a deterrent. But opponents say, mistakes are more than possible, it doesn't stop crime more than prison, and it's morally wrong for the state to kill, especially with the risk of treating people unfairly and condemning the wrong person to death.

[00:11:04.04] - Oliver (Host)

All major UK political parties are against bringing it back, and international treaties, theoretically, make it almost impossible. But as we're seeing across the Western world right now, things that seem like political certainties can very quickly change. So, some final thoughts. The UK took centuries to move from entertainment executions to abolition. It was a slow process with big mistakes along the way. Today, there is no death penalty in Britain, but the questions that it raised are still with us. What is justice? What is punishment for? And can a society, can a state ever truly kill humanely? Leave a comment or send me an email at oliver@morethanalanguage.com with your thoughts. Thank you for listening, and see you next time.