Prosecutorial Discretion, Racial Threat, and the Death Penalty in Singapore

Abstract: Research on criminal charging and sentencing decisions in the United States suggest that capital punishment is linked strongly with the race of the victim, especially when the victim is a member of the racial majority group. In this paper, we test the applicability of this general pattern to the non-liberal city-state of Singapore. We focus on the possible motivations surrounding the decision of prosecutors to launch death penalty charges in homicide cases and whether these decisions systematically favor members of the ethnic Chinese majority. Relying on racial threat theory, we examine whether racial/ethnic bias impacts the administration of capital punishment in Singapore despite claims of equitable treatment under the rule of law. Our findings support the racial threat thesis. Homicide victims identifying as ethnic Chinese enjoy the most-favored-victim status when prosecutors decide whether to initiate capital charges, especially when the assailants are racial minorities. We conclude that despite national claims of racial neutrality in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion, criminal prosecutors are not producing racially-neutral outcomes. Instead, prosecutors constitute an important apparatus of state domination and control over ethnic minorities in Singapore in the administration of the death penalty.