The death penalty is also referred to as capital punishment and is commonly reserved for capital offenses. Capital punishment involves the execution o an individual who has committed a capital offense by the state. The term capital has its origins in the Latin word capita which literally translates to of the head. Therefore a capital offense was originally punished by having the offenders head cut off. For a long time, many societies used execution as a way of dealing with criminals and politicians who opposed the government of the day. In other countries, crimes of a sexual nature such as adultery, sodomy, and rape are punishable by the death penalty. This also includes religious crimes such as apostasy, where an individual renounces the religion of the state. Drug trafficking is also another crime punishable by death in certain retentionist countries. Retentionist countries are those that still practice capital punishment. China, for instance, punishes crimes like human trafficking and serious cases of corruption by capital punishment. Military justice has also been known to impose capital punishment on things like mutiny, desertion, insubordination, and cowardice. Around the world, many European countries and states in the Pacific Area have abolishe
d the death penalty. Latin American countries have also done away with the death sentence as they have adopted democracy. Brazil is an exception, however, because it retains the death sentence for special circumstances like when someone is guilty of treason during a time of war. Countries that still retain the death penalty include the USA, most Asian and African countries as well as the Caribbean countries. South Africa does not have capital punishment, and this is quite a contentious issue in that country, especially because of the high prevalence of violent crime, murder, and rape. After the Second World War, the trend was towards the abolition of the death penalty. By 2006 92 countries had abolished the death penalty while 62 countries still retained capital punishment. The use of capital punishment is, however, becoming rare even in countries that have retained it are Japan, the US, Taiwan, and Singapore. Capital punishment was for a long time practiced in authoritarian and poor countries where political dissent was not welcome. In the 1980s, most of Latin America became democratic, leading to an increase in abolitionist countries. When communism fell in Eastern and Central Europe, countries aspiring to join the EU had to abolish the death penalty.