近几个月来，英国右翼政客对死刑的兴趣再次高涨。恢复英国运动领导人鲁珀特·洛发表宣言，承诺就恢复死刑举行具有法律约束力的公投。改革党议员李·安德森也支持公投，认为公众会投票支持死刑。
In recent months, there has been a resurgence of interest in the death penalty among rightwing politicians in the UK. The leader of Restore Britain, Rupert Lowe, has made a manifesto commitment to holding a legally binding referendum on bringing back capital punishment. The Reform MP Lee Anderson is also in favour of a referendum, arguing that the public would vote in favour of the death penalty.
英国死刑的支持者指出，这项“重磅调查”等民意调查显示，47%的学生赞成恢复死刑。但这些头条新闻具有误导性，因为调查很少包括有关严峻死刑管理的细节，而只提供了两种选择。
Such supporters of capital punishment in Britain point to polls such as this “bombshell survey” that supposedly showed 47% of students favoured bringing back the death penalty. But these headlines are misleading, as surveys rarely include details about the grim administration of capital punishment and only present a binary choice of the options.
你向公众提供的有关死刑现实的信息越多，它获得的支持就越少。在英国，当人们被提供特定的替代惩罚时，死刑历来都未能获得多数人的支持，无论罪行如何。YouGov的数据显示，只有35%的受访者认为，所有谋杀案都应将其作为惩罚措施。在美国，对死刑的支持率稳步下降，从1994年的80%下降到2025年的52%。
The more information you give the public about the reality of the death penalty, the less support it enjoys. In the UK, when people are offered specific alternative punishments, the death penalty has historically failed to get majority support, regardless of the crime. Only 35% of respondents believe it should be available as a punishment in all cases of murder, according to YouGov. And in the US, support for capital punishment has steadily declined, from 80% in 1994 to 52% in 2025.
对克里斯塔·派克的可怕处决失败只是最近一起国家批准的严重错误的杀戮。注射死刑比其他处决方法获得更高的支持，因为它具有医疗表面，使其看起来更“人道”。这一神话在美国维持了死刑。民意调查显示，如果各州改变方法，支持率将下降。
The horrific failed execution of Christa Pike is only the most recent state-sanctioned killing that has gone badly wrong. Lethal injection commands higher support than other methods of execution because it has a medical veneer that makes it seem more “humane”. This myth has sustained the death penalty in the US. Polling suggests that if states were to switch methods, support would decline.
派克是一名从小遭受可怕创伤的女性，最终在狱方人员为期一小时多的酷刑式注射中未能被处死。活动人士长期主张，1996年年仅20岁便被判死刑的派克不应关押在死囚牢房。庭审时，检方向陪审团将她描绘成危险的杀人犯，而非一个自幼遭受极端暴力虐待（包括被多名陌生人强奸）的少女。
Pike is a woman who suffered horrific trauma from a young age and ended up being tortured by prison officials for more than an hour in a failed attempt to kill her. Campaigners have long argued that Pike, who was sentenced to death in 1996 at the age of 20, shouldn’t be on death row. At trial, she was presented to jurors as a dangerous killer, rather than a teenager who had suffered extreme, violent abuse since she was a child, including being raped by several strangers.
她在死刑室经历的磨难直观地证明，注射死刑毫无医学性或人道性可言。我们目睹了死刑那可怕、丑陋、无法辩护的真实面目。这应促使英国支持死刑的政客紧急重新审视其立场。
Her ordeal in the execution chamber was a visceral demonstration that there is nothing medical or humane about execution by lethal injection. What we saw was the awful, ugly, indefensible reality of the death penalty. It should make pro-capital punishment politicians in the UK urgently reconsider their positions.
英国于1965年废除谋杀罪死刑，缘于蒂莫西·埃文斯因谋杀妻女被绞刑处决后，引发舆论哗然的冤案。实际上妻女均为住在楼下的连环杀手约翰·克里斯蒂所害。这绝非个案。实行死刑的国家必然会处决无辜者：一项研究估计，美国每25名被判死刑者中至少有1人极可能无辜。
Great Britain abolished the death penalty for murder in 1965, in the outcry that followed a fatal miscarriage of justice when Timothy Evans was hanged for murdering his wife and daughter. They were actually both victims of the serial killer John Christie, who lived downstairs. This was not an anomaly. Countries that have the death penalty inevitably execute innocent people: one study estimates that at least one in every 25 people sentenced to death in the US is likely innocent.
英国支持死刑者视美国为实行死刑的民主社会典范。但克里斯塔·派克案应迫使他们停步反思。美国已有200余人从死囚牢房获平反释放——平均每执行8人死刑便有1人平反。且有明确证据表明死刑无法威慑犯罪：2024年美国谋杀率最高的8个州中，7个保留死刑。
British supporters of the death penalty look to the US as the model of a democratic society that practices capital punishment. But the case of Christa Pike should force them to pause. More than 200 people have been exonerated from death row in the US – one for every eight people executed. And there is clear evidence that capital punishment does not deter crime: in 2024, of the eight most-violent states in the US measured by the murder rate, seven had the death penalty.
4月，美国司法部发布了一份死刑报告，厚颜无耻地声称美国各州可用的所有处决方式都是人道的，从毒气室到电椅，从行刑队到注射死刑。这无视了数十年来相反的证据，无论是统计数据还是那些被折磨致死者的尸体上发现的证据。
In April, the US Department of Justice published a death penalty report that brazenly claimed that all methods of execution available to US states are humane, from lethal gas to the electric chair, the firing squad to lethal injection. This is despite decades of evidence to the contrary, both statistical and found on the bodies of those tortured to death.
死刑支持者常声称死刑将只适用于“最恶劣的”大规模杀人犯。研究表明，现实中死刑却不成比例地适用于最脆弱的人群，包括精神病患者、智力障碍者，以及请不起律师的人。
Proponents of capital punishment often claim that it will be reserved for the “worst of the worst” mass murderers. Research shows that in reality the death penalty is disproportionately reserved for the most vulnerable, including people with mental illness and intellectual disability, and people who can’t afford a lawyer.
露丝·埃利斯是英国最后一名被处决的女性，于1955年被执行死刑。她曾被她射杀的那个男人殴打、推下楼梯并受到杀害威胁。今夏，查尔斯国王考虑到证据显示她是家庭暴力和胁迫控制行为的受害者，给予了她有条件赦免。这是迟来71年的一丝微薄公正，属于一个本不该被处决的女性。
Ruth Ellis, the last woman executed in the UK, in 1955, was punched, pushed down the stairs and threatened with murder by the man she shot dead. This summer, she was granted a conditional pardon by King Charles in light of evidence that she was a victim of domestic abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour. It was a tiny measure of justice, 71 years too late, for a woman who should never have been executed.
1956年，当议会辩论废除死刑时，舆论呈分裂状态。曼克罗夫特勋爵告诉贵族院同僚，一项民调显示1953年有73%的人支持死刑，而另一项在埃利斯被处决后进行的民调显示支持率仅为50%。在下议院，悉尼·西尔弗曼议员概括了政治家引领而非追随舆论的道德义务，询问议员们是否会杀害一个“他们明知杀害他是错误的……如果有暴力的公众舆论施压”让他们这么做的人。
In 1956, as parliament debated abolition, public opinion was divided. Lord Mancroft told peers that one poll showed 73% support for capital punishment in 1953, while another, after the execution of Ellis, found only 50% in favour. In the Commons, Sydney Silverman MP summed up the moral obligation of politicians to lead, not follow, opinion, asking MPs if they would kill a man “whom they knew it would be wrong to kill … if there were violent public pressure” to do so.
随着拒绝死刑的国家名单越来越长，死刑越来越多地被独裁政权用作工具。去年全球绝大多数处决是由中国、伊朗和沙特阿拉伯执行的。据报道，伊朗处决了2，000多人，其中许多人是因为参加了呼吁妇女享有更平等权利的抗议活动。这是洛维和安德森认为英国应该保留的公司吗？
As the list of countries rejecting capital punishment grows ever-longer, it is increasingly used as a tool by authoritarian regimes. The overwhelming majority of global executions last year were carried out by China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iran reportedly executed more than 2,000 people – many for participating in protests calling for more equal rights for women. Is this the kind of company Lowe and Anderson think the UK should be keeping?
在美国，许多顶级律师和医生在派克被拙劣地处决后要求暂停死刑。在英国，每当劳、安德森或他们的任何同行者说他们想重新引发一场关于死刑的辩论时，他们都应该被有力地提醒，死刑在实践中意味着什么，这是一个可怕的现实。玛雅·福阿是人权慈善机构“缓刑”的首席执行官，
In the US, numerous top lawyers and doctors are demanding a moratorium on the death penalty in the wake of Pike’s botched execution. Here in the UK, each time Lowe, Anderson or any of their fellow travellers say they want to bring back a debate about capital punishment, they should be forcefully reminded of the horrific reality of what it means in practice. Maya Foa is the CEO of the human rights charity Reprieve