INDEX
Document(s)
Racial Bias
By National Coalition Against the Death Penalty, on 1 January 2014
2014
Arguments against the death penalty
More details See the document
This webpage provides information on the link between racism and the death penalty in the United States.
- Document type Arguments against the death penalty
- Themes list Discrimination,
Document(s)
The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective
By Roger Hood / Carolyn Hoyle / Oxford University Press, on 1 January 2014
Book
More details See the document
The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective by Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle is the Fourth Edition of a text that highlights the latest developments in the death penalty around the world. Roger Hood utilizes his experience as a consultant to the United Nations’ annual survey of capital punishment in compiling a wide range of information from non-governmental organizations and academic literature. The book explores both the advances in legal challenges to the death penalty and the reduction in executions, while noting the continued existence of human rights abuses. Problems include unfair trails, police abuse, painful forms of execution, and excessive periods of time spent in inhumane conditions on death row. The authors explore the latest issues related to capital punishment such as deterrence, arbitrariness, and what influence victims’ families should have in sentencing.
- Document type Book
- Themes list Death Penalty,
Document(s)
Grief, Loss, and Treatment for Death Row Families
By Sandra Joy, on 5 December 2013
2013
Book
Murder Victims' Families
More details See the document
The families of death row inmates are rarely considered in public discourse regarding the death penalty. They have largely been forgotten, and their pain has not been acknowledged by the rest of society. These families experience a unique grief process as they are confronted with the loss of their loved one to death row and brace themselves for the possibility of an execution. Death row families are disenfranchised from their grief by the surrounding community, and their; mental health needs exacerbated as they struggle in isolation with the ambiguous loss that comes with the fear that the state will kill their loved one.
Grief, Loss, and Treatment for Death Row Families describes the grief that families experience from the time of their loved one’s arrest through his or her execution. In each chapter, Sandra Joy guides the reader through the grief process experienced by the families, offering clinical interventions that can be used by mental health professionals who are given the opportunity to work with these families at various stages of their grief. The author conducted over seventy qualitative interviews with family members from Delaware who either currently have a loved one on death row or have survived the execution of their loved one. Delaware was chosen because though it has a relatively small death row, it is ranked third in the nation with its rate of per capita executions. This book provides an in-depth awareness of the grieving process of death row families, as well as ways that professionals can intervene to assist them in healing. With increased awareness and effective clinical treatment, we can ensure that the families of death row inmates are forgotten no more.
- Document type Book
- Themes list Murder Victims' Families
Document(s)
Facts and Figures 2013
on 10 October 2013
2013
Campaigning
Trend Towards Abolition
aresMore details Download [ pdf - 115 Ko ]
Facts and Figures world day against the death penalty 2013
- Document type Campaigning
- Themes list Trend Towards Abolition
- Available languages Faits et chiffres 2013PENA DE MUERTE HECHOS Y DATOS
Document(s)
How Families of Murder Victims Feel Following the Execution of Their Loved One’s Murderer: A Content Analysis of Newspaper Reports of Executions from 2006-2011
By Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology, on 1 January 2013
2013
Working with...
More details See the document
By Corey Burton and Richard Tewksbury
- Document type Working with...
- Themes list Public debate, Murder Victims' Families, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,
Document(s)
China’s Death Penalty: The Supreme People’s Court, the Suspended Death Sentence and the Politics of Penal Reform
By Susan Trevaskes / British Journal of Criminology, on 1 January 2013
Article
China
More details See the document
This paper examines the issue of judicial discretion and the role of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) in death penalty reform since 2007. The SPC has been encouraging judges to give ‘suspended’ death sentences rather than ‘immediate execution’ for some homicide cases. Lower court judges are encouraged to use their discretion to recognize mitigating circumstances that would allow them to sentence offenders to a suspended death sentence. The SPC has used ‘guidance’ instruments which include ‘directives’ and other SPC interpretations and a new ‘case guidance’ system which provides case exemplars to follow. The study explored these guidance instruments as a way of deepening the understanding of how law, politics and judicial practices are interwoven to achieve reform goals.
- Document type Article
- Countries list China
- Themes list Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,
Document(s)
The Last Supper
By Julie Green, on 1 January 2013
Working with...
More details See the document
The Last Supper illustrates the meal requests of U.S. death row inmates. Cobalt blue mineral paint is applied to second-hand plates, then kiln-fired by technical advisor Toni Acock. I am looking for a space to exhibit all the plates on a ten-year loan. 540 final meals, and two first meals on the outside for exonerated men, are completed to date. I plan to continue adding fifty plates a year until capital punishment is abolished.
- Document type Working with...
- Themes list Death Row Conditions,
Document(s)
Death Penalty Mitigation A Handbook for Mitigation Specialists, Investigators, Social Scientists, and Lawyers
By Oxford University Press / Jose B. Ashford / Melissa Kupferberg, on 1 January 2013
Book
More details See the document
This book provides an introduction to socio-legal forms of mitigation in capital sentencing. It helps mitigation specialists, defense investigators, social scientists, and lawyers in developing socio-cultural themes of mitigation. It examines scientific formulations, concepts, and frameworks for structuring social history investigations and assessments of moral culpability. A fundamental aim of this handbook was to provide mitigation professionals not only with an understanding of the context of mitigation in criminal justice thinking, but also ways of contextualizing issues of blame and culpability.
- Document type Book
- Themes list Due Process ,
Document(s)
Confronting Capital Punishment in Asia: Human Rights, Politics and Public Opinion
By Roger Hood / Oxford University Press / Surya Deva, on 1 January 2013
Book
More details See the document
This book shows that the majority of Asian countries have been particularly resistant to the abolitionist movement and tardy in accepting their responsibility to uphold the safeguards. The essays contained in this volume provide an in-depth analysis of changes in the scope and application of the death penalty in Asia with a focus on China, India, Japan, and Singapore. They explain the extent to which these nations still fail to accept capital punishment as a human rights issue, identify impediments to reform, and explore the prospects that Asian countries will eventually embrace the goal of worldwide abolition of capital punishment.
- Document type Book
- Themes list Trend Towards Abolition, Death Penalty, Country/Regional profiles,
Document(s)
Death Penalty: Sociological Survey of Public Opinion on the Abolition of the Death Penalty in the Republic of Tajikistan
By Penal Reform International, on 1 January 2013
NGO report
More details See the document
The present study of public opinion on the death penalty in Tajikistan was conductedbetween June and August 2013. The main purpose of the study was to obtain reliableinformation about public opinion on the deathpenalty in Tajikistan, its awareness ofthe changes that have occurred in this areaand to see any changes in attitude since2010.
- Document type NGO report
- Themes list Public opinion,

