There exist, in our world, issues that have been at the core of moral and legal discussions throughout history. One such issue is capital punishment, and because each side of the debate has as many different angles as there exist individuals to argue them, the death penalty continues to struggle as the subject at the centre of current social controversy. A look back on the history of societal values explains why capital punishment was never questioned as to its legitimacy or practicality until the late nineteenth century. Dr. Thorsten Sellin, the accomplished scholar and author of numerous books on the subject, writes that there were specific reasons responsible for the existence of the death penalty in history. Governments attached little worth to individual human life. When people started recognizing the value that life ought to warrant, the death of "the criminal" became just and necessary to save the...