Objectives:
Compilation and comparison of the period when the death penalty was applied, its functions and significance, to the present day, when the death penalty has been abolished.

Material and methods:
Legal acts, jurisdictions, literature, Internet sources. Analytical method used.

Results:
the result of my article is to familiarize readers with the death penalty and its understanding by past and present societies.The death penalty initially served several functions, it was not only a function to punish the offender. Depending on the understanding of crime, it was treated as revenge of the gods or private revenge, or as public retaliation or as a means of social defense.The original reaction to the crime was revenge, aimed at destroying the offender and his property, and was not always directed against the perpetrator, most often consisting in removing a member from a social union by death or expulsion from the group (alienation).In the course of social development, the punishment took the form of a material talion, which consisted in doing the same evil to the perpetrator as he had done.With the development of humanitarianism in legal systems, the punishment from a primitive social reaction turned into a state punishment, subject to gradual rationalization.

Conclusions:
All aspects of the applied penalties for committed crimes, including the death penalty, presented in the article, are important for legal and moral considerations made by the society and, consequently, should lead to a referendum on the use of the death penalty in Poland.Currently, Poland and most countries do not use the death penalty in their sentences and do not recognize it in the code. It is a more humane approach to the criminal, but the Polish government is working on a further amendment to the penal code in favor of the victims.