Questions students ask me in Singapore: Crime and punishment

In my time as a student guide for Japanese high-schoolers visiting Singapore as part of their school activities, I get asked some questions about Singapore. Now granted, they have done their homework somewhat and so they won't ask obvious questions. This series is not about these obvious questions, what with the eleventy billion other sites that have answered those questions.

This series is about those really thought provoking questions where maybe my command of Japanese might not be enough to tell them quickly while inside an MRT waiting for the train to reach the destination.

The answers may not be well-sourced, but these will give a rough background on the subject at hand. I might add Japanese translations when I have the time.

How is caning done in Singapore?

Caning, in the judicial use of this word, is typically reserved for very severe crimes, like rape, molest, drug trafficking, armed robbery, rioting and vandalism. The reason this sentence is reserved for such serious crimes is that caning as a judicial punishment is a very unpleasant experience. The cane is 120cm long, 13mm thick (Singapore 10-cent coin).

To get the speed up to 160km/h, each strike needs winding up. The caner waves the stick in the air until it makes a whooshing sound before landing the strike. This needs a lot of physical strength, and indeed, caners are selected among the most physically able prison officers. 

You can read about caning as a punishment from here, but bear in mind: these people who were caned broke into critical transport infrastructure to vandalise trains. 

What about death penalty?

Bizarre that students from the same group would have asked me about death penalty and caning (especially when they are girls!), but death penalty is a sentence done in Singapore, reserved only for the most severe of severe crimes, like murder (not manslaughter!), kidnapping, unlawful discharge of firearms, and excessive drug trafficking. Just like in Japan, the method used is the long drop, which results in death by neck fracture.