The world is full of polarizing ideas, and at the top of anyone's list is the death penalty. It's one of those things that most tend to feel very strongly about, one way or the other: there's not a lot of wiggle room for opinions when it comes to taking the life of someone accused and convicted of some of the most terrible crimes imaginable.
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The western world has a storied history regarding capital punishment. Executions, as with any other procedure, have greatly evolved over time. While most of the condemned in the United States met their maker at the end of a rope, at one point in colonial history, people were pressed to death under heavy stones. In the last 400 years, the various systems of justice have also used death by burning, firing squad, poisonous gas, and a few other less common methods too barbaric to mention.
The world is full of polarizing ideas, and at the top of anyone's list is the death penalty. It's one of those things that most tend to feel very strongly about, one way or the other: there's not a lot of wiggle room for opinions when it comes to taking the life of someone accused and convicted of some of the most terrible crimes imaginable.
It doesn't matter what side of the capital punishment argument a person falls on, some conversations are universally important to have. That includes what it's really like for those who have gotten a date for their execution. Before that conversation, though, there are a few important things worth noting — like the fact that for many people, execution comes only after years behind bars and oftentimes, in solitary confinement.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), there are presently around 2,500 individuals in prison facing execution in 29 of the 50 states. (The other 21 states have abolished the death penalty.) The U.S. is one of the few Western countries that still allows capital punishment; most frequently the sentence is handed down for the crime of murder, though on the federal level it can also be levied for espionage, treason, large-scale drug trafficking, or the attempted murder of a witness or officer.
Public executions are a dark and troubling part of American history. Punishments for crimes have long come in many forms. Examples of capital punishment include electrocution, gassing, hanging, lethal injection, and more gruesome ones like stoning or the guillotine — which France greatly utilized during the French Revolution. While some are considered more barbaric than others, in modern day, all methods of the death penalty have growing choirs against them. Last year, Amnesty International reported a significant drop in executions around the world.
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