Essential reading on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish The opening I will nev

Essential reading on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discipline_and_Punish The opening I will never forget. It is a detailed historical description of one of the last public executions in France for Regicide. A powerful opening to a very thought provoking book. It details the decline of capital punishment as the public began to see the punishment as worse than the crime, and the moving from the taking of life by the state (execution), to the taking of bodily freedom (imprisonment). From punishing the soul of the man, to merely punishing his body. After reading the book I became sure that this trend in the reform of punishment will continue and that it is inevitable that eventually capital punishment will disappear completely from the world.