The Inter Press Service, with the assistance of the European Commission, has recently published “Crime and Justice: Abolishing the Death Penalty,” collecting more than 100 reports from dozens of countries and every continent. IPS used the voices of those who work directly with the death penalty issue to present a world-wide picture of the status of capital punishment. The stories told in the report are from activists, academics, lawyers and death row inmates. They range from dispatches from Central Asia to one about a botched lethal injection execution in Florida that dragged on for 34 minutes. As a follow-up to this execution, an IPS correspondent reports on the U.S. Supreme Court’s review of the lethal injection issue, which has resulted in a country-wide moratorium on executions. Additionally, the section on the United States includes stories about clemency, Ohio’s abolition movement, and many other death penalty issues. To download the 208-page book in pdf format, click on the image to the left.

(“Crime and Justice: Abolishing the Death Penalty,” Petar Hadji-Ristic, editor, Inter Press Service Dec. 2007). Posted Jan. 25, 2008. See Books and International.