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Current Position of Capital Punishment in Europe in 1997

NCJ Number
174668
Journal
Criminologist Volume: 21 Issue: 4 Dated: Winter 1997 Pages: 197-206
Author(s)
M Spicer; W Kruger
Date Published
1997
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This article presents the current or former capital punishment policy of 46 European countries, along with how the policy is or was applied.
Abstract
Brief statements of capital punishment policy are provided, along with significant dates, and current or previous methods of execution are described; the date of the last execution in countries that no longer have capital punishment is provided. For countries that currently have capital punishment, the number of executions in 1995 and 1996 are reported. The countries for which capital-punishment information is provided are Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaidzhan, Belgium, Belarus, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Gibralter, Greece, Hungary, iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldavia, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Russian Federation, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and Yugoslav Federation. The authors estimate that by the millennium, all of Europe will have abolished capital punishment. Since 1990 only Russia, the Ukraine, and a few other ex-Soviet states have still executed murderers. Most of these countries are now members of the Council of Europe and are under intense pressure from the Council to abolish capital punishment.