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Articles mentioning the death penalty
Share of 'justice–punishment' articles with a capital-punishment term (beheading, strangulation, dismemberment, poison, execution and others), and a corrected value from a coded sample of 240 for 'execution confirmed in the article'.
A sample-based warning against quoting death-penalty articles as executions: the Sejong peak is sentencing paperwork. Execution statistics should be drawn from the Simnirok, Ilseongnok and Chugwanji; the Sillok holds about 4% of those cases (Yu 2007).
- Formula
- Articles with a mention / all × 1,000; corrected = mention rate × execution-confirmed rate per period. The rate's denominator is every sampled article of the period (non-event articles included), so it applies directly to all articles with a mention (Wilson 95%).
- How to read it
- The Sejong peak is sentencing paperwork, not executions (2 confirmed of 20 sampled). The sample shows higher confirmation rates in 1550–1749, but with 20 per period the intervals are wide.
- Caveats
- Not an execution statistic; the Simnirok, Chugwanji and Ilseongnok come closer.
- External check
- Yu Seung-hui (2007): 111 of 2,853 Ilseongnok capital cases appear in the Sillok.
- Reliability card
- sampledSampled precision — share of keyword hits that mean what the metric says, measured on a coded stratified sample
A sample of 240 (20 per 50-year period) was coded for 'execution confirmed in the article'. The confirmed rate per period (denominator: all sampled articles of the period, non-event articles included), with its Wilson 95% interval, is used as the correction factor. Blind re-coding of 24 gave κ = 1.00 on execution, and an independent coder re-reading the 20 articles of 1400–1449 found the same 17 events and 2 confirmed executions. The last period (1850–) was drawn up to the Gojong years, so it contains articles outside the 1.0 range and its corrected value is indicative only.
| Period | Dated articles | Mentions | /1,000 | Sample events | Execution confirmed | Confirmation rate | 95% lo | 95% hi | Corrected/1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1392–1399 | 2,553 | 24 | 9.4 | 19 | 12 | 0.60 | 0.39 | 0.78 | 5.64 |
| 1400–1449 | 41,470 | 489 | 11.8 | 17 | 2 | 0.10 | 0.03 | 0.30 | 1.18 |
| 1450–1499 | 53,915 | 294 | 5.5 | 16 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.16 | 0.00 |
| 1500–1549 | 52,749 | 232 | 4.4 | 15 | 3 | 0.15 | 0.05 | 0.36 | 0.66 |
| 1550–1599 | 27,643 | 66 | 2.4 | 15 | 10 | 0.50 | 0.30 | 0.70 | 1.19 |
| 1600–1649 | 45,071 | 235 | 5.2 | 18 | 12 | 0.60 | 0.39 | 0.78 | 3.13 |
| 1650–1699 | 28,175 | 309 | 11.0 | 15 | 6 | 0.30 | 0.15 | 0.52 | 3.29 |
| 1700–1749 | 31,567 | 323 | 10.2 | 16 | 10 | 0.50 | 0.30 | 0.70 | 5.12 |
| 1750–1799 | 35,501 | 175 | 4.9 | 14 | 3 | 0.15 | 0.05 | 0.36 | 0.74 |
| 1800–1849 | 20,278 | 166 | 8.2 | 20 | 10 | 0.50 | 0.30 | 0.70 | 4.09 |
| 1850–1899 | 28,507 | 211 | 7.4 | 19 | 5 | 0.25 | 0.11 | 0.47 | 1.85 |
| 1900–1910 | 6,221 | 91 | 14.6 | 20 | 2 | 0.10 | 0.03 | 0.30 | 1.46 |
| Reign | Dated articles | Mentions | /1,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taejo | 2,251 | 21 | 9.3 |
| Jeongjong | 624 | 4 | 6.4 |
| Taejong | 10,336 | 70 | 6.8 |
| Sejong | 30,948 | 418 | 13.5 |
| Munjong | 2,670 | 4 | 1.5 |
| Danjong | 2,532 | 17 | 6.7 |
| Sejo | 10,806 | 67 | 6.2 |
| Yejong | 1,501 | 26 | 17.3 |
| Seongjong | 32,438 | 156 | 4.8 |
| Yeonsangun | 12,006 | 148 | 12.3 |
| Jungjong | 39,658 | 108 | 2.7 |
| Injong | 667 | 0 | 0.0 |
| Myeongjong | 15,042 | 18 | 1.2 |
| Seonjo | 26,679 | 52 | 1.9 |
| Gwanghaegun | 18,805 | 77 | 4.1 |
| Injo | 16,041 | 151 | 9.4 |
| Hyojong | 5,427 | 40 | 7.4 |
| Hyeonjong | 9,291 | 70 | 7.5 |
| Sukjong | 24,205 | 314 | 13.0 |
| Gyeongjong | 2,740 | 13 | 4.7 |
| Yeongjo | 36,725 | 283 | 7.7 |
| Jeongjo | 17,670 | 90 | 5.1 |
| Sunjo | 15,520 | 130 | 8.4 |
| Heonjong | 3,979 | 36 | 9.0 |
| Cheoljong | 5,764 | 2 | 0.3 |
| Gojong | 27,939 | 243 | 8.7 |
| Sunjong | 1,386 | 57 | 41.1 |