Capital punishment in the future

Discuss the evolution of human culture, economics and politics in the decades and centuries ahead
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wjfox
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Capital punishment in the future

Post by wjfox »

Here's a graph I'm currently working on, showing the number of countries where capital punishment is practiced. I left some space from 2021 until 2200 so it's easier to imagine the future trend.

As you can see, there's been great progress since the 1970s. Plus, various U.N. resolutions have been made in more recent decades.

However, a number of countries with hardline regimes appear very resistant to the idea of abolishing the death penalty, particularly in the Middle East. China alone kills thousands of its citizens each year.

So... what do you think is the future of capital punishment? Do you think it will ever be abolished worldwide? If so, when will that occur? What factors might drive the ending of executions? Could a softer, more secular form of Islam spread across the Middle East, similar to how Christianity underwent reforms in earlier decades/centuries? Surely as the world becomes more connected and globalised, this would make the death penalty increasingly taboo and unacceptable to societies, allowing the trend to reach zero eventually?

Any thoughts/suggestions welcome, as this will be going on our timeline at some point. I'm particularly interested in the when of global abolition as it's been quite difficult to extrapolate a trend from this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_p ... by_country


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weatheriscool
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Re: Capital punishment in the future

Post by weatheriscool »

I am sorry but pedophilia should result in a good old fashion hanging...Can we agree with this?
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wjfox
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Re: Capital punishment in the future

Post by wjfox »

weatheriscool wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:36 am I am sorry but pedophilia should result in a good old fashion hanging...Can we agree with this?
The question of whether or not the death penalty should be applied to certain crimes wasn't my intention for this thread – but you're welcome to debate that in off-topic.

I'm more interested in when and how the abolition will happen, assuming it does.

Anyway, I've now looked at this in more detail, and incorporated votes from the U.N. General Assembly resolutions for 2007-2020, which are shown by the blue squares. Combined with data on each country I've been able to form a much clearer picture of the likely trend. This suggests some time around 2090-2110 for a worldwide ending of capital punishment. I will go with 2110 as there seems to be a slight lag between countries voting on the resolutions, and then implementing the policy domestically.


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erowind
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Re: Capital punishment in the future

Post by erowind »

This is pure speculation but something I'd like to posit. 2110 may well be the time frame give or take a decade still. But it is possible that due to the unrest caused by the climate crisis during the middle of the century, 2040s-2060s, there may be a stall or even temporary reversal in that capital punishment trend.

The reasoning being that some countries will react to worsening conditions with authoritarianism, especially in cases where a scapegoat can be found to distract the population from the governments own ineptitude. America already still has capital punishment, but to use the past administration as an example here. Trump played into xenophobic undercurrents in the population to justify removing rights from various ethnic groups in the United States during his administration.

I could easily some other strong man's administration somewhere in the world doing the same with climate change and blaming some group for worsening conditions. That person already exists just not with climate change, Duterte's administration in the Philippines all but legalized extra-judicial killings of "criminals."

Maybe adding some variance to the prediction could account for this. Perhaps in a worse case scenario capital punishment isn't abolished until the middle of the 22nd century, though I hope that isn't the case.
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