Poland abolished the death penalty in 1997 and a penal code introduced in 1998 replaced it with life imprisonment.

Poland abolished the death penalty in 1997 and a penal code introduced in 1998 replaced it with life imprisonment. The death penalty was abolished despite vocal campaigning by right-wing activists who pointed out that more than 60 percent of Poles supported capital punishment for brutal murders. The last execution was carried out in 1988. On October 22, 2004 Polish members of parliament narrowly voted against reintroducing the death penalty following a series of murders that had attracted public notoriety. President Aleksander Kwasniewski had threatened to veto the proposal if parliament voted to bring back capital punishment seven years after its abolition for all crimes. According to press reports, the proposal by the opposition Law and Justice Party was rejected by the lower house of parliament by a vote of 198 to 194 with 14 abstentions. Following the vote, a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said that the reintroduction of the death penalty would have "compromised Poland in the international arena".
On December 18, 2008 and December 21st, 2010, Poland co-sponsored and voted in favour of the Resolution on a Moratorium on the Use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly.