The prison news mag­a­zine The Angolite fea­tures an in-depth piece on the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment around the world in its recent iss­sue. Citing a 2008 Amnesty International report, the arti­cle notes that China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and the United States lead the world in exe­cu­tions. Japan, the only oth­er indus­tri­al­ized democ­ra­cy besides the U.S. that uses cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, aver­ages five exe­cu­tions a year but is known for inhu­mane death row con­di­tions. Author and inmate Lane Nelson details the con­di­tions, the meth­ods, and the con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in China, Iran, and Japan. 

One sto­ry chron­i­cled by Nelson is the sto­ry of the for­mer Japanese death row pris­on­er Masao Akahori, who spent 31 years on death row before being exon­er­at­ed and freed. Akahori described how pris­on­ers are not told in advance the date of their exe­cu­tion and once he was pulled from his cell to be exe­cut­ed before the guards real­ized they had the wrong pris­on­er. He was so trau­ma­tized by the expe­ri­ence he was unable to speak for sev­er­al years.

(L. Nelson, ​“Executions International,” The Angolite, September/​October 2008). See International and Articles.

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