Humanization of the Criminal Punishment System in Western Europe (Death Penalty as a Case Study)

The paper gives a brief overview of the process of humanization in the field of criminal penalties that took place in Western Europe, taking such a sanction as the death penalty as a case study. The author analyzes the situation developed by the 18th century regarding criminal penalties, its affects and prerequisites. The author draws attention to the fact that the social changes taking place in the process of modernization in Europe also affect the criminal sphere. The author assigns an important role in this to the activities of the leading thinkers and enlighteners of that time. Their ideas are considered and analyzed on the example of specific provisions from the writings of thinkers. The author highlights their advanced and breakthrough character. The paper outlines the process of transformations in the criminal system manifested in the reduction of the use of the death penalty, in the improvement of the procedure and technical component of the execution, dictated by the idea of humanization and rethinking of the very concept of the death penalty as a measure of individual (rather than general) prevention. The author also draws attention to the process of replacing the death penalty with alternative types of punishment, in particular imprisonment, and analyzes and explains its causes. The author focuses on the continuity of the process of modernization and humanization in the field of criminal penalties, suggests the objective nature of this phenomenon and its inevitability. The author reviews stages and features of this process in the 20th century, when the foundation and the legal framework for the current situation of criminal punishment in the form of the death penalty in the legal system of European countries were formed.

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