in a recent public opinion survey it
found that 62% of respondents knew
little or nothing about the death
penalty in Singapore a death sentence is
the harshest and most final punishment
that our country’s criminal justice
system can inflict upon an individual
like all national policies it is a
reflection of us and of the society that
we live in it’s also a policy that has
the support of the overwhelming majority
of Singaporeans that same survey found
70 percent support but the majority of
Singaporeans have now also said that
they don’t know very much about it but
for today’s talk I would like to focus
our attention on a small group of people
who do know about the death penalty and
who have seen it at work from up close
whether we oppose or support the death
penalty we need to base our opinions on
an understanding of how it actually
works and how it plays out in Singapore
today so with we believe in second
chances which is a abolitionist group in
Singapore I have been working with the
families of death row inmates for over
six years now and the experiences of
these condemned prisoners and their
families don’t often feature in the
intellectual debates about capital
punishment in Singapore but it’s still
crucial to our understanding of how
things actually work in Singapore
executions are carried out by long drop
hanging seven people died in this way
last year we recently heard that one
person was executed just yesterday
although the prison authorities have not
yet responded to our queries to confirm
this what happens in a long drop hanging
is that the prisoner is taken to the
execution chamber a hood is placed over
their head the rope is positioned and
the trapdoor opens if all measurements
are correct the spinal cord will snap
killing them instantly but if the drop
is too long or too short the prisoner
could be decapitated or struggle to
this is ko jabbing just days before he
was executed on 20th May 2016 for murder
it was his sister’s birthday he is
dressed in the clothes that his mother
Linda and his sister Zhu mi bought for
him shortly after they were informed of
his imminent execution now what happens
is in the week at some point in the week
before the scheduled execution the
inmate is allowed to put on civilian
clothes and poses for photos
these photos are then given to the
families as mementos of the one that
they’ve lost they’ll imagine having to
go to a shop and to buy an outfit for
your child
your brother your your partner knowing
that it’s the last outfit that they will
ever wear imagine having to stand there
and try to guess what size you’re
supposed to buy because you haven’t had
physical contact for so long that you no
longer have a sense of size of shape of
that person this is exactly what Linda
and Jim I had to do one night standing
in the well stocked hours of Mustapha
and Little India surrounded by all these
shoppers they were trying to figure out
what size to buy because they said
jobbing had put on a lot of weight since
he entered prison which actually isn’t
surprising because death row inmates are
confined to their cells 23 hours a day
we think of it as a very morbid practice
giving you know photoshoots giving
photos to the families but jahmai
actually told me that she likes these
photos and she said it doesn’t look like
he’s in prison and if I close my eyes I
can’t imagine that he didn’t die now
I’ve worked for over six years on this
issue because I believe that the system
we have is deeply problematic and that
there isn’t enough support for these
families in my experience the inmates
tend to come from ethnic minority groups
and they also tend to come from
relatively low income backgrounds or
situations where their choices and
opportunities were more limited than the
ones that many of us in this room have
ever had when someone is arrested and
charged is a capital offense it throws
their family into the system of very
intimidating court trials and very
confusing legalese the families
themselves have committed no crime but
often face the same stigma that the
death row inmate is faced with which
makes it even more difficult for them to
talk openly about what has happened but
we see wife suddenly become single
parents having to care for children at
home and anxious husband’s in prison
we’ve seen parents religiously
presenting themselves at Changi Prison
every week just to see their child
behind a pane of glass for less than an
hour and I’ve also set with siblings in
court and watch them struggle to follow
the proceedings proceedings which would
be very difficult to understand if you
didn’t have a law degree
even if English was your first language
which very often for these people it’s
not but there is a silver lining to
being in court because usually what
happens is after the court hearing the
family is allowed to speak to the inmate
they go up to the dock and like prison
there is a pane of glass separating the
prisoner from everyone else but unlike
prison there is a slit in this glass
that allows the inmate to speak to
interpreters or lawyers and time after
time I’ve seen the family members go up
to that slit and put their hands through
to the waiting inmates on the other side
and this slit is not big enough for them
to hold hands but just to touch
fingertips sometimes they do this and
then they pray and sometimes they just
talk but always always they hold on
tight because it’s the only time that
they can touch each other we actually
know very little about what goes on in
Changi Prison because the death penalty
in Singapore is shrouded in secrecy
everyone who works with death row
inmates the prison officers the
counselors the doctors the executioner
himself or herself we don’t know who
that is a bound by the Official Secrets
Act to not talk about what goes on but
sometimes we hear from the inmates
themselves and through conversations
with the families my colleagues and I
glean an insight into a life on death
row and what it must be like to just be
sitting there waiting
we hear about the friendships that form
between the cells we hear about the
support and the solidarity that grows we
are told that when an execution is
imminent the inmate is allowed a budget
to choose whatever they want for their
last meal but that they sometimes choose
instead to use that money on their
friends so like they will buy a can of
coke for everybody on death row they are
then allowed to go from cell to cell
they shake hands and they say farewell
and we are told by the other inmates
that they can hear the opening sump of
the trapdoor from their cells and that’s
how they know it’s over and on death row
they call this being sent back or going
home people like ko JA Bing or like Gigi
okay Steven OBO her who was executed in
November last year for trafficking 2
kilos of cannabis have broken
Singapore’s laws is true others on death
row have committed even more heinous
crimes like multiple murders but the
important thing is that the death
penalty system is not of their doing it
is of ours it is a system that we choose
to implement and we are one of a
decreasing number of countries around
the world to do so and because it’s
something that we choose to do then we
need to do what we condemn criminals for
not doing we need to actually pay
attention we need to think about the
consequences and the impact of our
actions on other human beings and we
need to ask ourselves whether what we’re
doing is right
decades of research in the u.s. have not
been able to conclude that the death
penalty deters crimes like murder and
there is a lack of similar research in
Singapore and so there’s actually no way
that we can save any certainty that the
death penalty and all these executions
are any more effective than any other
punishment that we already have in our
criminal justice system
I will never actually have enough time
to fully convey to you the human
experience of the death penalty in Singh
and there’s just so much that we still
don’t know information is very hard to
come about there is no official
information on the number of people
currently sitting on Singapore’s death
row although our estimate puts it at
about 20 men we don’t know about the
women because we don’t hear from female
inmates these are the names of some of
the men that we know to be on death row
some of them could be executed by the
time the year is out which means more
post photos for more families and what
we do know is that in the months and
years to come
there will be more men and women who are
be sitting in the dock and they will be
sentenced to death and they will join
these names who waits for that date with
the gallows and we know that we’ll see
these families in court and that these
families will go out to the glass and
they will put their hands through and
they will hold on tight but what I want
to leave you with today at the end of
this long day of inspiring talks about
the diversity and you know wonders of
life and human experiences is the
question of while these families are
holding on tight what will we be doing
thank you
[Applause] [Music]