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 (
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