Resources

This is one of three short papers drawn from the longer report ‘Living With a Death Sentence in Kenya: Prisoners’ Experiences of Crime, Punishment and Death Row’. It is based on structured interviews conducted by our colleagues from the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights with a statistically significant sample of 671 prisoners (of whom 33 were women) sentenced to…

This is one of three short papers drawn from the longer report ‘Living With a Death Sentence in Kenya: Prisoners’ Experiences of Crime, Punishment and Death Row’. It is based on structured interviews conducted by our colleagues from the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights with a statistically significant sample of 671 prisoners (of whom 33 were women) sentenced to…

This is one of three short papers drawn from the longer report ‘Living With a Death Sentence in Kenya: Prisoners’ Experiences of Crime, Punishment and Death Row’. It is based on structured interviews conducted by our colleagues from the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights with a statistically significant sample of 671 prisoners (of whom 33 were women) sentenced to…

In Kenya, approximately 600 people are currently on death row. To learn more about their backgrounds and experiences, The Death Penalty Project in partnership with the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) commissioned Professor Carolyn Hoyle and Lucrezia Rizzelli at the University of Oxford, to conduct research – the first of its kind undertaken in Kenya – to determine…

In 2022 The Death Penalty Project partnered with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) to commission the University of Oxford to conduct research investigating the socio-economic profiles of those on death row in Kenya.   Authored by Prof Carolyn Hoyle, Director of The Death Penalty Research Unit, at the University of Oxford, and Lucrezia Rizzelli, doctoral candidate at…

36 years without an execution, Kenya continues to hand down death sentences. Exploring profiles of Kenya’s death row population, our research sheds light on prisoners’ backgrounds,  pathways to,  and motivation for, offending, as well as their experiences of the justice process and of death row. Using the key findings of our latest report: ‘Living with a Death Sentence in Kenya:…

One of the most compelling forces behind the evolution of international attitudes towards capital punishment in recent decades has been the increasing recognition of the potential for error in its use – that those states that choose to retain the practice may be taking the lives of innocent individuals. The Death Penalty Project produced this resource on wrongful convictions and…

The most common justification for the retention of the death penalty among the minority of states that continue to sentence to death and execute individuals who are found guilty of committing certain serious offences is a belief that this punishment has a unique deterrent effect. The Death Penalty Project produced this resource on deterrence and the death penalty. Download or…

When faced with calls to join the majority of states worldwide that have now abolished capital punishment, a key justification, typically relied upon by retentionist states, is that their citizens are not yet ready for abolition, and that political leaders must represent ‘the will of the people.’ The Death Penalty Project produced this resource on public opinion and the death…

The use of capital punishment has been an issue addressed by international human rights law since the earliest days of the United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly in 1948, and an instrument widely recognised as the gold standard for human rights, affirms the right to life and the prohibition of torture and cruel,…

The Death Penalty Project, in partnership with Community Legal Aid Institute, LBH Masyarakat, commissioned The Death Penalty Research Unit (DPRU) at the University of Oxford, in association with University Centre of Excellence HIV/AIDS Research Centre-HPSI at Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia (AJCU),  to conduct research on the economic and social motivations for entry into the illicit drugs trade and…

In 2021, The Death Penalty Project and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, in partnership with the Australian National University commissioned Prof. Carolyn Hoyle, Director of The Death Penalty Research Unit, at the University of Oxford, to undertake research in order to provide accurate data on attitudes towards the death penalty in Kenya and facilitate a constructive conversation on the…