Overview

• Takahiro Shiraishi’s hanging on June 27, 2025, was Japan’s first execution since 2022 and ends a three-year moratorium on capital punishment
• Shiraishi lured mostly female victims aged 15 to 26 to his Tokyo-area apartment via Twitter before murdering and dismembering them
• The execution underscores Japan’s status as one of only two G7 nations still enforcing the death penalty by hanging
• A 2024 government survey found that 83 percent of Japanese respondents viewed the death penalty as unavoidable
• As of December 2023, 107 inmates remained on death row, many held in prolonged solitary confinement with serious mental health consequences