Research Project

For my independent research project I chose to study the death penalty in pre-confederation Canada. I chose this topic because I wanted to study something that no longer happens in Canada today. I also find the ideas of crime and punishment from different time periods and places to be quite interesting, as many of these are very different than the systems that I am used to in the 21st century. As expected, I did discover some interesting punishments, but not as many different ones as I was expecting.

Below is the outline for my research project, which is helpful when trying to narrow your focus and plan your paper.

At the time of writing this outline, I was not completely sure where I wanted my research to take me. I altered my search from the crimes that received the death penalty to focus more on the impacts the death penalty has on society. This allowed me to better focus my thesis on whether the death penalty was a positive or negative thing in Canada. For the most part I discovered it was a poorly constructed and problematic punishment even though it had the opportunity to encourage positive behaviour.

Before this assignment I was aware that Canada used the death penalty for serious cases such as murder and treason, however I was unaware that it was also used for other crimes that are considered to be more minor. I wasn’t sure how the death penalty originated in Canada, but through my research I was able to understand through the case of Peter Cartcel. Below is my research paper on the topic showcasing the information I gathered with examples used to emphasize the problems with the death penalty.