行走在社会中的死神: 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，巴厘的一家法院证实LindsaySandiford的上诉已被驳回。Sandiford是一名英国奶奶，因非法携带可卡因进入印尼在1月被判处死刑。可能面对行刑队的Sandiford现在仍是全球约23,000个等待执行死刑的犯人之一。但根据人权组织大赦国际4月10日公布的报告显示，2012年全球新的死刑判决略有下降。去年，法官判了约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.

上述数据不包括中国。由于资料匮乏，2009年起中国被排除在报告之外。虽然中国已经减少了死刑罪名的数量，在中国处死的犯人比其他国家的总和还要多。除中国（和叙利亚的战场）外，该慈善组织记录了21个国家的682起处决。四分之三发生在伊朗、伊拉克和沙特阿拉伯。在伊拉克，处决数几乎翻了一番，达到129起，其中34起是在同一天执行的。

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.

美国在2012年处决了43个罪犯，处决人数排在世界第五。这一数字远低于1999年的98人的峰值 。去年4月康涅狄格州成为第17个废除死刑的州，也是最近6年中的第5个。更多的州正在考虑废除死刑。

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.

美国处决数的下降反映出全球的趋势。去年，拉脱维亚成为第97个从其司法系统中去除死刑的国家。在少数几个顽固不化的地方，死刑数和以往持平或有所增加。在世界的大多数地方，政治家们正在废除死刑。