Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, refers to
the custom of executing prisoners who are convicted of certain
crimes. Such crimes are known as capital crimes, and tend to be
grave crimes against persons or governments (such as
premeditated murder, rape or treason). In the world today Of the
main developed countries, only the United States and Japan use
formalized capital punishment, though many developed countries
give law enforcement greater authority to kill than allowed by
the United States. For emerging countries, China uses the death
penalty and in the non-developed world it is practiced in most
Sharia states (those whose legal systems are based on Muslim
legal philosophy), as well as many others. According to
officially released governmental figures, the human rights
organization Amnesty International estimates that Singapore has
the highest execution rate in the world, at 13.65 hangings per
1,000,000 residents. Saudi Arabia has the second-highest rate,
at 4.65 per 1,000,000. Based on 20