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We commission, support and publish independent research that deepens understanding and challenges misconceptions about capital punishment. We also publish legal resources to assist practitioners working in criminal justice. Our policy briefs assist decision-makers and invigorate evidence-based discussion about reform.

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Legal Representation in Death Penalty Cases in Bangladesh

This report examines the role and effectiveness of legal representation in death penalty cases in Bangladesh, a jurisdiction that continues to expand the use of capital punishment and where more than 2,600 people currently live under sentence of death. Drawing on empirical data and legal analysis, the study finds that individuals facing capital charges are routinely denied effective and competent…

French Translation – Between Retention and Abolition: Making Sense of a Death Penalty Without Executions

Entre maintien et abolition : Comprendre la peine de mort sans exécutions Ce rapport marque le 40e anniversaire de l’adoption de la catégorie « abolitionniste de facto » (ADF) dans les rapports quinquennaux des Nations Unies sur la peine de mort. Aujourd’hui, 42 États sont classés dans la catégorie ADF – États où aucune exécution n’a eu lieu depuis au…

Between Retention and Abolition: Making Sense of a Death Penalty Without Executions

This report marks the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the ‘abolitionist de facto’ (ADF) category in the UN’s quinquennial reports on the death penalty. Today, 42 states fall under the category of ADF – countries where no executions have taken place for at least a decade, but where the death penalty remains in law. Though an absence of executions…

Chinese Translation – Procedural Trauma, the Illusion of Closure and Myth of Consensus: Understanding Victim Experiences in Capital Punishment Cases

One of the most deeply entrenched arguments in favour of capital punishment is the perceived demand for retribution by and for victims of crime and their families – ‘justice’ in the form of death sentences and executions. Much is at stake in this assertion of the value of retributive punishment, from the complex needs of victims in the aftermath of a traumatic…

Procedural Trauma, the Illusion of Closure and Myth of Consensus: Understanding Victim Experiences in Capital Punishment Cases

Dealing with Punishment: Risks and Rewards in Indonesia’s Illicit Drug Trade

In 2020-2021, 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 the research building empirical knowledge on who is being convicted for drug offences…

Kenya Socio-economic report

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…

Kenya Part Two: Overwhelming Support for Abolition Among Opinion Leaders

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…

Kenya Part One: A Public Ready to Accept Abolition

Legislators’ Opinions on the Death Penalty in Taiwan

In 2021, The Death Penalty Project and the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) commissioned Professor Carolyn Hoyle at the University of Oxford and Professor Shiow-duan Hawang at Soochow University, Taipei to carry out a study exploring Taiwanese legislators’ attitudes towards capital punishment. The study reveals that the majority of Taiwan’s legislators would like to see the death…

Evidence in Support of Abolition of the Mandatory Death Penalty in Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago is now one of the few nations in the world that retains in its law the mandatory death penalty for murder, even though there have been no executions for murder for over 20 years— since 1999. In 2015, 21 men were mandatorily sentenced to death in Trinidad and Tobago and, at present, it is believed that about…

The Death Penalty in the Eastern Caribbean and Barbados

In order to investigate the important question of why the countries of the Eastern Caribbean and Barbados are yet to abolish the death penalty, despite not carrying out executions for many years, The Death Penalty Project carried out research, the first of its kind, in the 6 member states of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) as well as…

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