FREE ESSAY ON EXECUTION

EXECUTION

Execution is a common punishment throughout the world for cruel and unspeakable acts of
violence and acts of rage. The cruelest form of execution is hard to say because there
are many different forms of execution. Execution dates back to the middle ages. It was
used for a large number of crimes including petty offenses involving property. Most death
sentences involved torture, such as burning at the stake, breaking on the wheel, and
strangulation. 
Burning at the stake was a popular death sentence and means of torture, used mostly for
witches and suspicious women. Burning dates back to the Christian era, where, in 643, an
edict declared it illegal to burn witches. The increased persecution of witches
throughout the centuries resulted in millions of women being burned at the stake. Burning
at the stake as a punishment for witches came to North America, where, in the famous
Salem Witch Trials of 1692, twenty people were burned. The last legal execution by
burning at the stake came with the end of the Spanish Inquisition in 1834. 
The wheel as a method of torture and execution could be used in a number of ways. A
person could be attached to the outer rim of the wheel and then rolled over sharp spikes,
or down a hill, to their death. Also, the wheel could be laid on its side, like a
turntable, with the person tied to it. The wheel would turn, and people would take turns
beating the victim with iron bars, breaking bones and eventually causing death. 
In 1789, when Dr. Joseph Guillotin proposed that all criminals be executed by the same
method and that torture should be kept to a minimum. Decapitation was thought to be the
least painful and most humane method of execution at the time. The first execution by
guillotine took place in 1792The last official use came in 1977 in France, and the device
has not officially been used since.
Hanging was a popular way of executing people. The prisoner could simply be hanged with a
noose, fracturing the neck. The Garotte was also a popular method of torture, and similar
to hanging. A mechanical device such as a rack or a gag would be tightened around the
person's neck, causing slow strangulation, stretching. A device could also be placed in a
prisoner's mouth and kept in place by tying and locking a chain around his or her neck.
Today capital punishment has become less gruesome than the beheadings and torture that
were common centuries before. Lethal injection, electrocution, and lethal gas have become
the preferred methods of execution in the United States, mostly because these methods
appear to be less offensive to the public, and more humane for the prisoner. 
Bibliography
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