Time to abolish the death penalty
In recent years, the death penalty has been abolished in country after country. For example, less than 30 years ago (in 1977) only 16 countries had abolished the death penalty for all crimes, while today the number is 86. More than 60 percent of the world’s countries have abolished the death penalty, in law, or in practice.
Every western European country has abolished the death penalty. Australia (1985), New Zealand (1987), Italy (1994), Poland (1997), South Africa (1997), Canada (1998), Chile (2001), Greece (2004) and Mexico (2005) have also abolished the death penalty.
During the past decade an average of more than three countries per year are abolishing the death penalty.
Perhaps the U.S. (and California) should seriously consider joining this accelerating trend, which will likely soon eliminate the death penalty almost everywhere.
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For more info. on how countries around the world are abolishing the death penalty, please see:
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-facts-eng http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-countries-eng *************************