[Abolition of capital punishment in public in England]

The Author, following a critical approach focussed on society's response to deviance and on the means of social control which society applies to defend itself from crime and criminals, confutes the thesis according to which the demise of public execution is generally considered as a step in the evolution of the humanitarian ideal of total abolition of the death penalty. By means of a detailed historical analysis of the socioeconomic and political climate which gave rise to the campagning for the demise of public execution in England, the Author gives evidence that such abolition cannot be seen as a linear descendant of a long line of criminal law reforms but rather as a successful manoeuvre to ensure the continuance of the use of the dealth penalty in order to reaffirm the power of the elite which represented itself as the moral guardian of society.