Places of execution

Press, 11 July 1983, Page 20

Places of execution

Most poor countries execute their worst criminals. Very few rich, democratic countries do. The only significant industrialised nations that now use the death penalty in peacetime are a curious group: Russia, South Africa, and America. © In the Soviet Union 23 crimes are punishable by death, including speculation, selling for profit and offering shoddy goods. No accurate figures are available, but it is reckoned that some 400 successful businessmen are still disposed of each year by shooting. ® South Africa executes people for robbery and rape as well as for murder. An average of 100 people are hanged each year, 10 of them white. © All 50 of the United States had effectively let capital punishment lapse in the 19605. In 1976 the Supreme Court allowed it back (for the highest degree of murder only), insisting that states make sure that death does not constitute “cruel

and unusual punishment”; that mitigating circumstances be fully allowed for; and that ample room be left for appeals against sentence.

In the 38 states that have reintroduced the penalty, 1154 convicted murderers have been sentenced to death since 1976. Only seven executions have been carried out. The latest to be executed, in April, was already in the electric chair when Governor Wallace of Alabama refused clemency for the last time. The sixth victim, in Texas last December, had exhausted the process of review of 23 different judges.

New technical refinements — injections, pills, gas, and so on — have opened up new ethical dilemmas. But the rate of capital sentencing is rising, and about 63 per cent of Americans say they support it.

© Japan still has the death penalty, and there is no significant public movement to abolish it. But justice ministers are extremely

reluctant to sign the necessary papers, so there is a two-year wait between sentence and the noose, and only about one hanging a year.

© Turkey has and increasingly uses the death penalty. Among the other 20 members of the Council of Europe, only Cyprus and Ireland retain it for any civilian crimes in peacetime. The Irish reserve it for the murder of policemen and diplomats only. Their last execution was in 1954.

® The Isle of Man is the last territory in western Europe to retain hanging as the theoretical penalty for murder. (They flog criminals, too.) The death sentence has been passed three times since it was suspended on the British mainland in 1965, and invariably commuted to a life sentence.

© In Australia only the state of Western Australia still has the death penalty. It is to be abolished this year.