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Asian Criminology (2016) 11:179206
DOI 10.1007/s11417-015-9226-x
Wing-Cheong Chan1
Received: 25 May 2015 /Accepted: 11 November 2015 /Published online: 12 January 2016 # Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract Singapore is one of the few countries in the world which still imposes the death penalty for certain criminal offences. Until recently, it was the mandatory sentence for murder, drug trafficking and use of firearmsand it is these three offences which comprise nearly all of the executions in Singapore. This article examines the use, historical origins and recent legislative and judicial developments in the death penalty in Singapore. While the number of executions has fallen to very low levels in recent years and changes to the law relating to the mandatory death penalty in murder and drug offences have been made, it is the opinion of the author that the death penalty will continue to be used in Singapore in the foreseeable future.
Keywords Death penalty. Singapore . Deterrence
Introduction
Singapore has been described as BDisneyland with the death penalty^ by author William Gibson in 1993 (Gibson 1993). Twenty-two years later, the epithet may need to be updated. Singapore still has the death penalty, but this is practised much less then before, and the city-state, which never had a Disneyland, now has a theme parkUniversal Studioswhich opened in 2010.1
Meanwhile, the world has progressed along the abolitionist track rapidly. In 1988, there were 101 countries which can be classified as Bactively retentionist^, but that number has
1The description Btheme park with the death sentence^ found in Clammer (1997, p. 142) probably owes its origin to Gibson (1993). Universal Studios Singapore, which opened on 18 March 2010, is part of a group of attractions which includes a casino, so another apt description of Singapore could be the Bcasino with the death penalty (which is used less often now)^.
* Wing-Cheong Chan [email protected]
1 Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, 469G Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259776,
Singapore
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180 Asian Criminology (2016) 11:179206
dwindled to 39 as at 2014 or roughly 20 % of the worlds countries (Hood and Hoyle 2015,p. 16).2
The countries in Asia stand...