a task force set up by the Ministry of Justice to deliberate...

a task force set up by the Ministry of Justice to deliberate issues concerning the possible abolition of the death penalty concluded that it would be possible to replace capital punishment with a sentence of life without parole in Taiwan. The ministry said it hoped to draft a law to that effect by the end of November 2011. According to a ministry official, the task force reached the conclusion in a meeting during which most members agreed that such an alternative – life imprisonment replacing the death penalty – would probably be acceptable to most Taiwanese, although a few committee members questioned whether “imprisonment until death” was more inhuman than capital punishment. The ministry said that while more than 70 percent of people oppose the abolition of the death penalty, support for abolition increases when life imprisonment without parole is offered as an alternative. The country currently has 44 inmates on death row.