INSTITUTE INDEX: The South's execution lust puts it in rare and brutal company

Of the 206 countries around the world, number in which executions were known to have taken place in 2013: 22

Number of executions that took place worldwide last year: 778

Percent increase that represents over 2012: almost 15

Number of countries that executed more people than the United States in 2013: 4*

Number of countries in the Americas besides the United States that carried out executions last year: 0

Besides the United States, number of other countries worldwide that have continuously executed people in each of the past five years: 8**

Of the 56 member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, number besides the United States that carried out executions in 2013: 0

Besides the United States, number of G8 nations that carried out executions in 2013: 1***

Number of executions carried out in the United States in 2013: 39

Percent drop in executions in the U.S. from 2012 to 2013: 10

Number of U.S. states where executions took place last year: 9

Of those nine states, number in the South: 5

Percent of all U.S. executions carried out in Texas in 2013: 41

Percentage point increase that represents over the previous year: 7

Number of U.S. states that have abolished the death penalty to date: 18

Number of those abolitionist states that are in the South: 1****

Date on which the United Nations Human Rights Committee approved a report expressing concern about racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty disproportionately affecting African Americans: 3/26/2014

Number of studies that have concluded that defendants who kill whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than those who kill blacks: more than 20

Correlations between the death penalty and decreasing crime rate: 0

* China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

** Besides the United States, they are Bangladesh, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen.

*** Japan was the only other G8 member besides the United States to execute someone in 2013.

**** West Virginia.

(Click on figure to go to source. Most of the numbers in this index are from "Death Sentences and Executions 2013," released this week by Amnesty International.)