South Korea has 52 death row inmates, average age of 58.7

Jinju Prison seen from the outside / Korea Times photo by Jang Ryeon-sung

With executions suspended in Korea for nearly 30 years, 52 death row inmates are currently being held in domestic correctional facilities, the justice ministry said Tuesday.

The death row prisoners have an average age of 58.7, while 17, or 32.7 percent, are aged 60 or older, the ministry said, four days ahead of World Day Against the Death Penalty, observed annually on Oct. 10. Those in their 50s make up the largest group, with 29 inmates, it added.

The death-sentenced prisoners include notorious serial killers Yoo Young-chul and Kang Ho-sun, who are currently imprisoned at the Seoul Detention Center after being convicted of killing 20 and 10 people, respectively.

Korea has not carried out an execution for nearly 30 years, with the last execution taking place on Dec. 30, 1997, when 23 people, including members of the Jijonpa murder gang, were put to death in the final year of the Kim Young-sam administration.

Amnesty International has classified Korea as a "de facto abolitionist state" since 2007.

The death row population has been aging as the debate over whether to abolish the death penalty remains unresolved. In 2024, Oh Jong-geun, who was convicted in the Boseong fisherman serial murder case, died at the age of 87 from an underlying illness. In March this year, Lee Woo-chul of the "Anyang AP gang," who was convicted of murdering a fellow gang member and the man's girlfriend, also died at the Gwangju Correctional Institution while battling cancer.

Won Eon-sik, 69, who set fire to a religious facility in Wonju, Gangwon Province, in 1992, killing 15 people, has been held in a correctional facility for 35 years, making him the country's longest-serving death row inmate.

The most recent person sentenced to death is Im Do-bin, who killed five people in a shooting spree at an Army 22nd Division GOP in Goseong, Gangwon Province, in 2014.

Source: koreatimes.co.kr, Yonhap, October 6, 2026

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but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
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