Capital punishment

Capital punishment, historically called judicial homicide and now often referred to as the death penalty, is when a state kills someone as punishment for a real or alleged offense. The official order for this punishment is a death sentence, and carrying it out is an execution. A person who has been given a death sentence and is waiting to be executed is called condemned, and is commonly said to be "on death row." The word "capital" comes from the Latin *caput*, meaning "head," and originally referred to beheading, though executions today use many different methods.

The crimes that can lead to the death penalty are called capital crimes, capital offenses, or capital felonies. These vary by country, but often include serious violent offenses like murder, assassination, mass murder, child murder, aggravated rape, terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. They also frequently include crimes against the state, such as attempting to overthrow the government, treason, espionage, sedition, and piracy. In some places, repeat offenses, aggravated robbery, kidnapping, drug trafficking, drug dealing, and drug possession can also be capital crimes or make a crime eligible for the death penalty. Throughout history, states have also used executions for a wide range of other conduct—including political or religious beliefs and practices, for a status a person could not control, or without following fair legal procedures. Judicial murder is the term for the intentional, premeditated killing of an innocent person through capital punishment; for example, the executions that followed the show trials in the Soviet Union during the Great Purge were a tool of political repression.

As of 2026, 53 countries still use capital punishment. Meanwhile, 111 countries have fully abolished it in law for all crimes, 9 have abolished it for ordinary crimes (but keep it for special cases like war crimes), and 23 are abolitionist in practice (they haven't used it recently). Even though most countries have abolished it, more than half the world's population lives in countries that still have the death penalty. As of 2023, only 2 of the 38 OECD member countries—the United States and Japan—allow it.

Capital punishment is highly controversial. Many people, organizations, religious groups, and states disagree about whether it is morally acceptable. Amnesty International says the death penalty violates human rights, specifically "the right to life and the right to live free from torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"—rights protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948. The European Union's Charter of Fundamental Rights bans capital punishment. The Council of Europe, which has 46 member states, has worked to end the death penalty; no execution has taken place in any of its current member states since 1997. Between 2007 and 2020, the United Nations General Assembly passed eight non-binding resolutions calling for a worldwide halt to executions, with the goal of eventual abolition.

**History**

Nearly every society in human history has executed criminals and dissidents since the beginning of civilization. Until the 1800s, without developed prison systems, there was often no practical alternative to ensure that criminals were deterred or kept from reoffending. The use of formal execution goes back to the earliest recorded history. Most historical records and various primitive tribal practices show that the death penalty was part of their justice systems. Communal punishments for wrongdoing generally included blood money (compensation paid by the wrongdoer), corporal punishment, shunning, banishment, and execution. In tribal societies, compensation and shunning were often seen as sufficient justice. When crimes involved neighboring tribes, clans, or communities, responses included formal apologies, compensation, blood feuds, and tribal warfare.

A blood feud, or vendetta, happens when arbitration between families or tribes fails or doesn't exist. This form of justice was common before state-based or organized religious arbitration systems emerged. It could result from crime, land disputes, or a code of honor. "Acts of retaliation underscore the ability of the social collective to defend itself and demonstrate to enemies (as well as potential allies) that injury to property, rights, or the person will not go unpunished."

In most countries that still use capital punishment, it is now reserved for murder, terrorism, war crimes, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries, sexual crimes like rape, fornication, adultery, incest, sodomy, and bestiality carry the death penalty, as do religious crimes such as Hudud, Zina, and Qisas offenses—including apostasy (formally renouncing the state religion), blasphemy, moharebeh, hirabah, Fasad, Mofsed-e-filarz, and witchcraft. In many countries that use the death penalty, drug trafficking and often drug possession are also capital crimes. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption and financial crimes are punished by death. In militaries around the world, courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offenses like cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny.

**Ancient history**

Elaborations of tribal arbitration of feuds included peace settlements, often conducted in a religious context, as well as compensation systems. Compensation was based on the principle of substitution—this could involve material goods (such as cattle, enslaved people, or land), the exchange of brides or grooms, or the payment of a blood debt. Settlement rules could also...