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Harold Wilkins, at 16 years old, was the last juvenile sentenced to the death penalty in the United Kingdom, in 1932 for a sexually related murder, but he was reprieved due to age. [33] In 1938 the issue of the abolition of capital punishment was brought before parliament.
The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 [1] (c. 71) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It abolished the death penalty for murder in Great Britain (the death penalty for murder survived in Northern Ireland until 1973). The act replaced the penalty of death with a mandatory sentence of imprisonment for life.
Death penalty opponents regard the death penalty as inhumane [206] and criticize it for its irreversibility. [207] They argue also that capital punishment lacks deterrent effect, [208] [209] [210] or has a brutalization effect, [211] [212] discriminates against minorities and the poor, and that it encourages a "culture of violence". [213]
In addition to the crime of treason, the Treason Felony Act 1848 (still in force today) created a new offence known as treason felony, with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment instead of death (but today, due to the abolition of the death penalty, the maximum penalty both for high treason and treason felony is the same—life imprisonment).
By 1823, the Judgment of Death Act made the death penalty discretionary for most crimes, and by 1861, the number of capital offences had been reduced to five. The last execution in the United Kingdom took place in 1964, and the death penalty was abolished for various crimes in the following years.
The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1949–1953 reviewed the application of death penalty in the United Kingdom, including the questions of what crimes should receive the death penalty and what method of execution should be employed.
The death penalty for treason was abolished by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, enabling the UK to ratify protocol six of the European Convention on Human Rights in 1999. [ 106 ] In the United States
The United Kingdom retained the death penalty for high treason until 1998; however, this technicality was superseded by the absolute ban on the death penalty in 1976. William Joyce was the last person to be put to death for high treason in the UK, on 3 January 1946 at Wandsworth Prison.