行走在社會中的死神: 死刑Capital punishment Not dead yet

ON APRIL 8th a court in Bali confirmed that Lindsay Sandiford, a British grandmother convicted of smuggling cocaine into Indonesia, had lost an appeal against the deathsentence handed to her in January. Ms Sandiford, who may face a firing squad, remains one of the 23,000 or so condemned prisoners around the world. But the number of new death sentences decreased a little in 2012, according to a report which Amnesty International, a human-rights group, released on April 10th. Last year judges issued about 1,700 capital sentences, 10% less than the year before.

4月8日，巴釐的一家法院證實LindsaySandiford的上訴已被駁回。Sandiford是一名英國奶奶，因非法攜帶可卡因進入印尼在1月被判處死刑。可能面對行刑隊的Sandiford現在仍是全球約23,000個等待執行死刑的犯人之一。但根據人權組織大赦國際4月10日公佈的報告顯示，2012年全球新的死刑判決略有下降。去年，法官判了約1,700人死刑，比前年少了10%。

Those figures exclude China, which Amnesty removed from its reporting in 2009, for lack of information. Though China has reduced the number of capital crimes, more prisoners are executed there than in all other countries combined. Apart from China (and Syria’s battlefields), the charity recorded 682 executions in 21 countries. Three-quarters took place in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In Iraq the number of executions roughly doubled, to 129, of which 34 were carried outin one day.

上述數據不包括中國。由於資料匱乏，2009年起中國被排除在報告之外。雖然中國已經減少了死刑罪名的數量，在中國處死的犯人比其他國家的總和還要多。除中國（和敘利亞的戰場）外，該慈善組織記錄了21個國家的682起處決。四分之三發生在伊朗、伊拉克和沙特阿拉伯。在伊拉克，處決數幾乎翻了一番，達到129起，其中34起是在同一天執行的。

America killed 43 criminals in 2012. That makes its executioners the world’s fifth number is a lot lower than the 98 executions that took place in 1999, when American capital punishment peaked. Last April Connecticut became the 17th state to abolish the death penalty, and the fifth in six years. Several more are mulling the change.

美國在2012年處決了43個罪犯，處決人數排在世界第五。這一數字遠低於1999年的98人的峯值 。去年4月康涅狄格州成爲第17個廢除死刑的州，也是最近6年中的第5個。更多的州正在考慮廢除死刑。

The decline in American executions reflects a broader global trend. Last year Latvia became the latest of 97 countries to wipe the death penalty from its justice system. In a few recalcitrant places, capital punishment is holding steady or picking up. In most of the world politicians are smothering it.

美國處決數的下降反映出全球的趨勢。去年，拉脫維亞成爲第97個從其司法系統中去除死刑的國家。在少數幾個頑固不化的地方，死刑數和以往持平或有所增加。在世界的大多數地方，政治家們正在廢除死刑。