Capital punishment was a Social sciences and society good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result April 29, 2009 Good article nominee Not listed July 1, 2013 Good article nominee Not listed
	A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on June 22, 2004.
Current status: Former good article nominee

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It seems incomprehensible to me why the USA (as one of the biggest and most important country in the world) ist not mentioned in the exemplary listing of retentionist countries but much smaller countries like Singapore or Taiwan are. Any rationale for that?

“China, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Taiwan.“ Ginovino (talk) 22:19, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It gets added and then removed then added back and then removed again...... it's an embarrassment and some can't handle it. Will ask for some other opinions on best way to handle it. Moxy🍁 22:35, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The US should definitely be there. Before non-retentionist countries agree to extradite someone to the US for what the US regards as a capital offense, they typically require a guarantee that the prosecutor will not seek the death penalty. Note that the US is an outlier among the wealthy countries. NightHeron (talk) 00:46, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If we have consensus, then we have consensus. The only thing I would note is that the US and Japan are listed as retentionist countries in the first sentence in the paragraph, so one could argue it's duplicative/implied. Alyo (chat·edits) 13:56, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since the list comes right after mentioning that 60% of the world's population lives in retentionist countries, the list should include more of the large-population countries (including the US and Japan) and perhaps fewer of the smaller-population countries such as Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Taiwan (these each have <40 million population). NightHeron (talk) 14:24, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Noting my caveat about the first sentence, I agree and certainly would add in the US. It might be worth keeping some of the smaller countries who have had particularly noteworthy public debates about their death penalty use (e.g., Singapore [1] and Saudi). Alyo (chat·edits) 15:34, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I'd suggest beginning with the largest by population size, in order (maybe no need to make that explicit, even though WP:BLUE would apply): China, India, United States, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria ... NebY (talk) 16:21, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The map on Contemporary Use highlights the different countries with varying colours between green and red, which is not a Colourblind friendly colourscheme. I propose that someone could change it to a better colour scheme :-) Jolanda.mueller (talk) 09:58, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The redirect Mass execution has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 February 22 § Mass execution until a consensus is reached. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:08, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In "Contemporary use", the map says there's 10 countries that have abolished the death penalty except under special cases, while the statistic in "by country" says there's 7. Is the map outdated? sanodigy (talk) 01:45, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The fourth paragraph of the introduction describes capital punishment as "controversial" and then goes on to list various movements attempting to abolish it, but fails to mention any movements attempting to advocate for it. Therefore, it seems the word choice should change to say capital punishment is "unpopular", or it should also list examples of movements attempting to introduce or preserve it.

In addition, the fourth paragraph describes uncertainty around whether capital punishment is "ethically permissible". But advocates of the practise argue that it is ethically necessary, not just permissible. So it seems it would be more neutral to say there is uncertainty about the "ethics" of the practise / its "ethicality". EditorPerson53 (talk) 00:08, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Controversy and Debate: International Views, the map on the left's description seems to be wrong. The surrounding text and appearance of the graph suggests it might be to do with countries' views on capital punishment, but the description has the wrong colours and says it is about homosexuality and the death penalty. DaggerDan1 (talk) 04:14, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The description of the map and the colors in the legend are correct. The map is about the general legal situation regarding homosexuality, the legend used here focuses on the death penalty. But I agree that the map is confusing in the section International Views, where readers would probably expect the map to show these views. I think we should remove the map. (We could also move it to Capital punishment#Other offences, since homosexuality is mentioned there, but that might still be a bit confusing.) (P.S.: I found via WikiBlame that the map was added in Special:Diff/889681060.) — Chrisahn (talk) 08:29, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The same map and legend are used in Capital punishment for non-violent offenses#Homosexuality and sodomy. Makes perfect sense there. Since Capital punishment for non-violent offenses is linked from Capital punishment#Other offences, I don't think we need the map here. I'll remove it. — Chrisahn (talk) 08:32, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]