China should consider using the death penalty less...

China should consider using the death penalty less widely for corruption cases and abolishing it altogether for non-violent crimes, the semi-official China News service quoted legal experts as saying. Experts are now calling for a "kill fewer, kill carefully" policy towards suspects of non-violent crimes.
"The death penalty undoubtedly has a deterrent effect on graft and bribe-taking, but we must not exaggerate this deterring power," Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences law professor Xiao Zhonghua said.
"It's not as if the more extreme the punishment the more effective it is at preventing crimes," he said.
Certain non-violent crimes that threaten the safety of the country or the interest of national defence should still carry the death sentence, Zhao Bingzhi, director of the China People's University's Criminal Law Research Center, said.
"However, for other non-violent crimes, we should consider gradually abolishing the death penalty."
Ruan Qilin, professor of law at the Chinese Politics and Law University said it was hard to prove the deterrent effect of the death penalty for corruption, and even more difficult to end executions in China.
"You cannot prove its effectiveness, that's undeniable. There isn't a definite deterrent effect," he told Reuters. "It would be very difficult to abolish the death penalty in this country."
Currently, 68 crimes can bring the death penalty in China and most are non-violent, including smuggling, producing forged currency, financial fraud, theft from ancient tombs and organising prostitution, the report said.