The Death Penalty - The Facts

Last year over 4,000 people were executed across the globe, many of these were executed for petty reasons and many will also be innocent.

The following map shows the extent of execution in our world, red indicates that the country retains the death penalty; orange indicates the country retains the death penalty but has not used it in over ten years. Green indicates that the country has abolished the death penalty except for exceptional circumstances (such as war) and blue indicates that a country has abolished the death penalty in all circumstances.

 This map gives an indication over where we’re at in the world. Europe has the best record on execution; Belarus is the only country in Europe that still executes prisoners. One of the reasons that Europe has such a good record on execution is that both the Council of Europe and the European Union require members to abolish the death penalty before they are admitted.  The Americas is another continent with a good record, the majority of countries have not used it in the past ten years. Only three countries still actively use the death penalty, the USA, St Kitts and Nevis and Cuba. Australasia has mostly abolished the death penalty, with only a few (very small) states still actively using it.

Asia is the worst offender when it comes to execution: of the 21 nations that performed executions (officially) in 2011, 15 of the states were Asian.  The top four states by number of people executed were also Asian.  China carries out more executions that all other nations combined, it is thought that in 2011 China executed up to 4,000 people. Although there have been moves in China to reduce the amount of crimes that result in execution.