Late on Thursday night a drug smuggler was executed, marking the third execution in Taiwan this year and the 360th since 1990.
Ever since Cesare Beccaria, an Italian philosopher and reformer, proposed an end to the death penalty in a celebrated study On Crimes and Punishment in 1764, abolition of capital punishment has been a topic of continuous and often acrimonious debate.
According to Amnesty International, 108 countries have ended capital punishment either in law or practice.
It might not yet have become a universal standard, but abolition of the death penalty is said to be an emerging international consensus as more countries have followed the trend in the past three decades.
In the countries which retain the death penalty, such as US and Japan, there have been persistent debates between proponents and opponents of the punishment.
But the debate has rarely taken place in Taiwan, where the death penalty is applied in a wide range of crimes and 70 to 80 percent of people regularly tell pollsters they disagree with abolishing it.
"A lack of information and discussion [on the death penalty] has put Taiwan in a peculiar situation, compared with those countries where it is always heatedly debated.
"But I think that without [debate], society wouldn't get a chance to know the drawbacks of the death penalty and how it has impaired our commitment to human rights," said Ku Yu-jane (顧玉珍), secretary-general of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (台灣人權促進會), which advocates abolishing the death penalty.
Although several studies have shown capital punishment does not deter crime, the deterrence argument still prevails in Taiwan, where the idea of applying harsh punishment in troubled times is deeply rooted.
"Committing crimes is like an illness. The more serious the illness, the stronger the medicine that must be used. For those who commit heinous crimes, death seems to be the only prescription," said Lee Ching-chuan (李清泉), an associate professor of criminology at National Central Police University.
"Death penalty opponents may argue that it does not deter crime, but I would say, based on my 30 years of experience with prison inmates, death is an effective deterrent," Lee said. "I know most of them are scared stiff that they were going to lose their lives. And any longer sentence seems far less effective a deterrent."
Though commonly cited, the deterrence argument does not stand up to the scrutiny of both domestic and foreign studies.
A 1994 study by the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission -- the only one ever carried out in Taiwan -- which was based on statistics dating from 1961 to 1990, concluded that the number of executions does not correlate to changes in crime rates.
But even though the deterrence argument has been proven false, retribution remains the emotional argument in favor of retaining the death penalty and the public is frequently reminded of exceptional cases.
Popular TV entertainer Pai Ping-ping (白冰冰) spoke on the night of Oct. 6, 1999 when the murderer of her only daughter was executed: "It's impossible for me to ever forgive Chen Chin-hsing (陳進興). Execution is what he deserved. We waited too long for his execution. His death is a justice delayed, but it will never comfort my broken heart."
In another example, Lu Chin-te (
Their words appear to have a great impact on the public's support for capital punishment and it has become a convenient way for death penalty supporters here to garner support by simply asking "Would anyone agree that Chen Chin-hsing did not deserve to be executed?"
"The death penalty is not a way to compensate the victims and their relatives. The compensation for the victims is one thing and the punishment of the perpetrators is another.
"There are no grounds for the state to carry out tit-for-tat vengeance on behalf of the victims," said Nigel Li (李念祖), a law professor at Shih Hsin University, who once applied for a constitutional review to challenge the death penalty.
Although numerous polls have found that public support for the death penalty remains high in Taiwan -- regularly between 70 to 80 percent -- they do not necessarily tell the whole story of public opinion.
Dando Shigemitsu, a former justice of Japan's Supreme Court and a law scholar, argued in his book Abolishing the Death Penalty that while governments often cite public backing as a reason for keeping the death penalty, the way questions are presented can actually determine the outcome of the polls.
As Dando discovered, information made available to respondents, such as the probability of a miscarriage of justice as well as alternative punishments, can make a real difference in polling numbers.
In the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission's study, although 71 percent of respondents disagreed with abolishing the death penalty, given the alternative of life in prison without parole, 51 percent said they would support abolition.
In fact, abolition of the death penalty is seldom the result of public opinion. Britain, France and Canada have all ended capital punishment despite public opposition.
"When the public is not equipped with sufficient information on the drawbacks of the death penalty ... it's risky for them to make a decision on the issue," said Kenneth Chiu (
"Public opinion is highly valued in democracies, but I don't think every policy can be decided by a majority vote," Chiu said.
The second part of this article will run next Sunday.
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