Capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

is a legal penalty in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

. Currently, the only crime punishable by death is aggravated murder. The method of execution is

hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...

. Jamaica was originally a British colony. The last person executed in Jamaica was

Nathan Foster Nathan or Natan may refer to: People *Nathan (given name), including a list of people and characters with this name *Nathan (surname) *Nathan (prophet), a person in the Hebrew Bible *Nathan (son of David), biblical figure, son of King David and ...

, who was convicted of murder and hanged in 1988. The Jamaican Parliament had placed a moratorium on the death penalty until 2009, when it was lifted. Since 2009, capital punishment is legal and executions in Jamaica could resume; however, there have been no executions since. In 1999, a series of hangings - by some accounts, amounting to 50 - were scheduled by the Jamaican government, following the recent hangings (the first in 20 years) in

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

. Ultimately, after international protests, the executions were not carried out. It was estimated in 2012 that there were seven or eight inmates in Jamaica currently under a sentence of death. However, by 2018 this had been reduced to zero, with no executions having taken place.

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20091121045649/http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Jamaica-Death-Penalty-To-Stay-After-Parliament-Vote-Despite-Human-Rights-Protests/Article/200811415162159

Law enforcement in Jamaica Murder in Jamaica Human rights abuses in Jamaica {{Humanrights-stub