ABSTRACT
From about the middle of the eighteenth century there were vocal demands for reform in most areas of social life. There can be no doubt that reform in the use of criminal punishment was but a small part of a wider movement for reform in every sphere. The reformers were to pay their price for forcing the issue of total abolition, because, quite understandably, punishment went underground. The most important feature of punishment for the last 100 years or so has been the punishment that replaced the death penalty, which was, of course, imprisonment. Corporal punishment in prisons during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century was widespread—probably including the punishment of death. There were many instances in the army and navy when, flogging and the death penalty were meted out with brutality even for trivial offenses. The number of crimes punishable by death was drastically reduced, other secondary punishments remained in favor.
