Description

It is often expressed that there is broad support amongst Singaporeans for the death penalty. But what is the real extent of support for the death penalty, the reasons for the support, and the type of scenarios where there is support?

In a comprehensive survey conducted for the first time in Singapore and funded by NUS, 1500 citizens were interviewed between April and May 2016 to find out what they think of the death penalty. The aim of the survey is to inform discussions amongst academics, policy makers and the civil society in Singapore, as well as to offer a source for future comparisons with data from other countries and a “baseline” for future opinion surveys in Singapore on this topic.

The members of the project team are:
• Chan Wing Cheong (NUS Faculty of Law)
• Tan Ern Ser (NUS Sociology Department)
• Jack Lee (SMU School of Law)
• Braema Mathi (MARUAH)

The results of the survey will be presented and discussed at this seminar. Joining the members of the project team are Roger Hood, Professor Emeritus of Criminology, University of Oxford, who devised the survey which has also been implemented in Malaysia (2012) and in Trinidad (2010); and Michael Hor, Professor and Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong. They will give an international perspective on this topical issue, the role of public opinion and what surveys in several other countries have revealed.

About The Speakers
Chan Wing Cheong is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. He specialises in criminal law and family law, and has written extensively in these areas. His most recent contribution to the literature on the death penalty is “The Death Penalty in Singapore: in Decline but Still Too Soon for Optimism” (2016) Asian Journal of Criminology 179.

Roger Hood is Professor Emeritus of Criminology at Oxford University and an Emeritus Fellow of All Souls College. In 2015 he published (with Carolyn Hoyle), the 5th edition of The Death Penalty: a Worldwide Perspective. He is co-editor (with Surya Deva) of Confronting Capital Punishment in Asia (2013), has published studies of public opinion on the mandatory death penalty in both Trinidad and Malaysia, and recently served as consultant to the review of the death penalty in Malaysia by the Attorney General’s Chambers. He is an honorary Queen’s Counsel and a Fellow of the British Academy.

Michael Hor is Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong. Prior to that he was a Professor at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, where he taught and researched criminal law and criminal justice. His works on the death penalty include “Singapore’s Death Penalty: The Beginning of the End?” in Confronting Capital Punishment in Asia (2013) and “Death, Drugs, Murder and the Constitution” in Developments in Singapore Law between 2001 and 2005 (2006).

Jack Tsen-Ta Lee is Assistant Professor at the School of Law, Singapore Management University, where he teaches and researches constitutional and administrative law, and media law, while maintaining an interest in heritage law. He graduated with an LLB (Hons) from the National University of Singapore, and an LLM from University College London in 2003 which he completed on a British Chevening Scholarship. In 2012, he was conferred a PhD in Law by the University of Birmingham, which was funded by a teaching assistantship. He won the School of Law’s Most Promising Teacher Award for 2010–2011.

Braema Mathi is founder and current president of MARUAH, a human rights NGO in Singapore. She was formerly a reporter with The Straits Times, a nominated member of Parliament, visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, as well as president of AWARE and Transient Workers Count Too.

Tan Ern Ser is Associate Professor of Sociology; and Academic Adviser to Social Lab, Institute of Policy Studies, at the National University of Singapore. He received his PhD in Sociology from Cornell University. He is author of “Does Class Matter?” (2004) and “Class and Social Orientations” (2015). He is co-investigator of Asian Barometer- Singapore, World Values Survey-Singapore, and the Singapore Panel Study on Social Dynamics. He is Chairman, Research Advisory Panel, HDB. He was appointed a Justice
of the Peace in 2013.