Capital Punishment in Singapore

Capital Punishment In Singapore

Capital punishment is legal in Singapore. The city-state had the second highest per-capita execution rate in the world between 1994 and 1999, estimated by the United Nations to be 1.383 executions annually per hundred thousand of population during that period. The highest was Turkmenistan (now an abolitionist country) with 1.492. Each execution in Singapore is carried out by hanging in Changi Prison at dawn on Friday.

Singapore has had capital punishment since it was a British colony and became independent before the United Kingdom abolished capital punishment. The Singaporean procedure of hanging condemned individuals is heavily influenced by the methods formerly used in Great Britain.

In 2012, however, the State amended its law to exempt some cases from the mandatory sentence while boosting enforcement. Although the penalty will stay, discretionary measures are now given to the judge. It should be noted that Singapore has one of the lowest crime rates in the world.