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is the lawful infliction of death as a punishment and since ancient times it has been used for a wide variety of offences. The Bible prescribes death(see exodus 21:12 and deuteronomy 22:13) for murder and many other crimes, including kidnapping and witchcraft. By ....

Middle of Essay
.... By the 1850s these reform efforts began to bear fruit. Venezuela (1853) and Portugal (1867) were the first nations to abolish the death penalty altogether. In the United States Michigan was first state to abolish it for murder in 1847. Today, it is virtually abolished in all of Western Europe and most of Latin America. In America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (except Israel) most countries still retain the death penalty for various crimes and impose it with varying frequency. Shooting and hanging are the two most common methods of execution followed by beheading and lethal injection which is becoming almost universal in America and is ....