Stefanie Faucher, Associate Director of Death Penalty Focus
While a handful of U.S. state continue to kill their prisoners, the death penalty is continuing its decades-long decline in the U.S. and globally, as more states and nations scrap the anachronistic practice over fiscal and human rights concerns.
A generation ago, one could potentially face execution in more than 100 countries across the globe, but the death penalty abolition movement has since swept over Europe and the Americas, with the United States being the one notable exception, and has established itself in Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, approximately three countries per year abolish the death penalty.
A total of 139 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, leaving the United States standing with China, Iran, North Korea, and Yemen, as the world's most active executioners, and one of only 23 countries to carry out executions in 2010.
Still, the U.S. is seeing fewer executions than a decade ago – 46 in 2010, down from a high of 98 in 1999 -- and fewer defendants are being sentenced to death – 110 last year, as compared to the mid-1990s, when more than 300 Americans were sentenced to death annually. The state of Texas, known for its aggressive use of the death penalty, saw just eight new death sentences in 2010.
Just weeks ago Illinois become the fourth state in four years to get rid of the death penalty, bringing the total number of states that no longer use the practice to 16, in addition to the District of Columbia.
Just weeks ago Illinois become the fourth state in four years to get rid of the death penalty, bringing the total number of states that no longer use the practice to 16, in addition to the District of Columbia.
The risk of executing the innocent formed the thrust of the argument for death penalty abolition in Illinois, where no fewer than 20 innocent men have been released from death row, and where the state legislature and Governor Pat Quinn acted boldly in the interest of justice, fairness, and human life.
In more than half a dozen states across the country, including Connecticut and Maryland, legislatures are taking up abolition not only to protect innocent lives, but also with cost savings in mind. Illinois has begun downsizing its death penalty infrastructure, in the weeks since ending its death penalty, to the benefit of its state coffers.
States with larger systems stand to gain even more by abolishing capital punishment. California is poised to spend more than a billion dollars over the next five years on new death row housing facilities and on maintaining a capital punishment system that now boasts more 700 death row inmates.
Given these global trends it seems it is no longer a question of whether the death penalty will be abolished, now it is simple a question of WHEN.
Related Stories: In more than half a dozen states across the country, including Connecticut and Maryland, legislatures are taking up abolition not only to protect innocent lives, but also with cost savings in mind. Illinois has begun downsizing its death penalty infrastructure, in the weeks since ending its death penalty, to the benefit of its state coffers.
States with larger systems stand to gain even more by abolishing capital punishment. California is poised to spend more than a billion dollars over the next five years on new death row housing facilities and on maintaining a capital punishment system that now boasts more 700 death row inmates.
Given these global trends it seems it is no longer a question of whether the death penalty will be abolished, now it is simple a question of WHEN.
What Do the US & China Have in Common? The Death Penalty [Video]
BREAKING: Illinois Abolishes Death Penalty
Justice Stevens: Death Penalty Unconstitutional
http://www.care2.com/causes/human-rights/blog/global-trend-away-from-death-penalty-continues/
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