Sharp Decline In Chinese Executions Mirrors Global Trend
Executions in China are falling rapidly, in line with a trend worldwide, including in the U.S.
NPR reported on the decline in executions on Weekend Edition Sunday. An estimated 3,000 people were put to death in China last year. That number is down from an average of 15,000 a year in the 1990s.
The numbers are estimates because China doesn't release execution figures, which are considered a state secret.
Gady Epstein, the China correspondent for the Economist who recently wrote about the death penalty there, told NPR's Rachel Martin that the number of executions last year were down 75 percent from 2002. He said:
"One significant milestone came in 2007 when the Supreme People's Court began to review every single death penalty case, and [that] probably is the one factor that's most chiefly responsible for the reduction in executions overall.
"I think the people who were evolving in the system in the '80s and '90s — people who were trained in law — they paid attention to the fact that international public opinion was horrified at the number of people being executed in China, to the extent that it was kind of a public issue.
"And this gets at why this decline was not really well noticed, is because the number of people that China executes every year is not widely publicized in itself because it's a state secret. So similarly, the decline has happened very quietly."