Hanging


Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerous countries and regions. As a form of execution, it is commonly practiced at a structure called a gallows. The first known account of execution by hanging is in Homer's Odyssey. Hanging is also a common method of suicide.

Methods of judicial hanging

There are numerous methods of hanging in execution that instigate death either by cervical fracture or by strangulation.

Short drop

The short drop is a method of hanging in which the condemned prisoner stands on a raised support, such as a stool, ladder, cart, horse, or other vehicle, with the noose around the neck. The support is then moved away, leaving the person dangling from the rope. Suspended by the neck, the weight of the body tightens the noose around the neck, effecting strangulation and death. Loss of consciousness is typically rapid and death ensues in a few minutes.
Before 1850, the short drop was the standard method of hanging, and it is still common in suicides and extrajudicial hangings which lack the specialised equipment and drop-length calculation tables used in the newer methods.File:Biskupia Gorka executions - 14 - Barkmann, Paradies, Becker, Klaff, Steinhoff.jpg|thumb|Execution of guards and kapos of the Stutthof concentration camp on 4 July 1946 by short-drop hanging. In the foreground are the female overseers: Jenny-Wanda Barkmann, Ewa Paradies, Elisabeth Becker, Wanda Klaff, Gerda Steinhoff.

Pole method

A short-drop variant is the Austro-Hungarian "pole" method, called Würgegalgen, in which the following steps take place:
  1. The condemned is made to stand before a specialized vertical pole or pillar, approximately in height.
  2. A rope is attached around the condemned's feet and routed through a pulley at the base of the pole.
  3. The condemned is hoisted to the top of the pole by means of a sling running across the chest and under the arms.
  4. A narrow-diameter noose is looped around the prisoner's neck, then secured to a hook mounted at the top of the pole.
  5. The chest sling is released, and the prisoner is rapidly jerked downward by the assistant executioners via the foot rope, thus resulting in strangulation and death.
This method was later also adopted by the successor states, most notably by Czechoslovakia, where the "pole" method was used as the single type of execution from 1918 until 1954, when the prison hosting Czechoslovakia's executions, Pankrác Prison, constructed an indoor gallows that exclusively accommodated short-drop hangings to replace the pole method. Nazi war criminal Karl Hermann Frank, executed in 1946 in Prague, was among approximately 1,000 condemned people executed by the pole hanging method in Czechoslovakia.

Standard drop

The standard drop involves a drop of between and came into use from 1866, when the scientific details were published by Irish doctor Samuel Haughton. Its use rapidly spread to English-speaking countries and those with judicial systems of English origin.
It was considered a humane improvement on the short drop because it was intended to be enough to break the person's neck, causing immediate unconsciousness and rapid brain death.
This method was used to execute condemned Nazis under United States jurisdiction after the Nuremberg Trials, including Joachim von Ribbentrop and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. In the execution of Ribbentrop, historian Giles MacDonogh records that: "The hangman botched the execution and the rope throttled the former foreign minister for 20 minutes before he expired." A Life magazine report on the execution merely says: "The trap fell open and with a sound midway between a rumble and a crash, Ribbentrop disappeared. The rope quivered for a time, then stood tautly straight."

Long drop

The long-drop process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced to Britain in 1872 by William Marwood as a scientific advance on the standard drop, and further refined by his successor James Berry. Instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person's height and weight were used to determine how much slack would be provided in the rope so that the distance dropped would be enough to ensure that the neck was broken, but not so much that the person was decapitated. Careful placement of the eye or knot of the noose contributed to breaking the neck.
Prior to 1892, the drop was in the range of, depending on the weight of the body, and was calculated to deliver an energy of, which fractured the neck at either the 2nd and 3rd or 4th and 5th cervical vertebrae. This force resulted in some decapitations, such as the infamous case of Black Jack Ketchum in New Mexico Territory in 1901, owing to a significant weight gain while in custody not having been factored into the drop calculations. Between 1892 and 1913, the length of the drop was shortened to avoid decapitation. After 1913, other factors were also taken into account, and the energy delivered was reduced to about. The record speed for a British long-drop hanging was seven seconds from the executioner entering the cell to the drop. Speed was considered to be important in the British system as it reduced the condemned's mental distress.
Long-drop hanging is still practiced as the method of execution in a few countries, including Japan and Singapore.

As suicide

In Canada, hanging is the most common method of suicide, and in the U.S., hanging is the second most common method, after self-inflicted gunshot wounds. In 2024, hanging was the most common method in the United Kingdom, accounting for 56% of the 3,504 suicides.
Those who survive a suicide-via-hanging attempt, whether due to breakage of the cord or ligature point, or being discovered and cut down, face a range of serious injuries, including cerebral anoxia, laryngeal fracture, cervical spine fracture, tracheal fracture, pharyngeal laceration, and carotid artery injury.

As human sacrifice

There are some suggestions that the Vikings practised hanging as human sacrifices to Odin, to honour Odin's own sacrifice of hanging himself from Yggdrasil. In Northern Europe, it is widely speculated that the Iron Age bog bodies, many of which show signs of having been hanged, were examples of human sacrifice to the gods.

Medical effects

A hanging may induce one or more of the following medical conditions, some leading to death:
The cause of death in hanging depends on the conditions related to the event. When the body is released from a relatively high position, the major cause of death is severe trauma to the upper cervical spine. The injuries produced are highly variable. One study showed that only a small minority of a series of judicial hangings produced fractures to the cervical spine, with half of these fractures being the classic "hangman's fracture".
The side, or subaural knot, has been shown to produce other, more complex injuries, with one thoroughly studied case producing only ligamentous injuries to the cervical spine and bilateral vertebral artery disruptions, but no major vertebral fractures or crush injuries to the spinal cord.
In the absence of fracture and dislocation, occlusion of blood vessels becomes the major cause of death, rather than asphyxiation. Obstruction of venous drainage of the brain via occlusion of the internal jugular veins leads to cerebral oedema and then cerebral ischemia. The face will typically become engorged and cyanotic.
Compromise of the cerebral blood flow may occur by obstruction of the carotid arteries, even though their obstruction requires far more force than the obstruction of jugular veins, since they are seated deeper and they contain blood in much higher pressure compared to the jugular veins.

Notable practices across the globe

Hanging has been a method of capital punishment in many countries, and is still used by many countries to this day. Long-drop hanging is mainly used by former British colonies, while short-drop and suspension hanging is common elsewhere, in countries including Iran and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan

Hanging is the most used form of capital punishment in Afghanistan. Following the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, the administration of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan under its first president Hamid Karzai was hesitant to use the death penalty. Karzai signed the first death warrant in April 2004, when the method of shooting was used to execute serial killer Abdullah Shah. In June 2011, Afghanistan resumed hanging as a method when Karzai ordered the execution of teenage terrorist Zar Ajam and an accomplice who were convicted of a terror attack in Jalalabad.

Australia

Capital punishment was a part of the legal system of Australia from the establishment of New South Wales as a British penal colony, until 1985, by which time all Australian states and territories had abolished the death penalty. In practice, the last execution in Australia was the hanging of Ronald Ryan on 3 February 1967, in Victoria.
During the 19th century, crimes that could carry a death sentence included burglary, sheep theft, forgery, sexual assaults, murder and manslaughter. During the 19th century, there were roughly eighty people hanged every year throughout the Australian colonies for these crimes.

Bahamas

The Bahamas employs hanging to execute the condemned, but no executions have been conducted in the country since 2000. As of 2023, there have been some inmates on death row but their sentences have been commuted.

Bangladesh

Hanging is the only method of execution in Bangladesh, ever since its independence.