According to wiki, Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is “specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck,” although it formerly also referred to crucifixion.
The preferred past tense and past participle in English is hanged.[1]
For lack of a better term, hanging has also been used to describe a method of suicide in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and brings about unconsciousness and then death, by means of partial suspension or partial weight-bearing on the ligature. This method has been most often used in prisons or other institutions, where full suspension support is difficult to devise. The earliest known use in this sense was in A.D. 1300.
Methods of judicial hanging
Short drop
The short drop is done by placing the condemned prisoner on the back of a cart, horse, or other vehicle, with the noose around the neck. The vehicle is then moved away, leaving the person dangling from the rope. The condemned prisoner dies of strangulation. Prior to 1850, it was the main method used. A ladder was also commonly used with the condemned being forced to ascend, after which the noose was tied and the ladder pulled away or turned, leaving the condemned hanging. A stool, which the condemned is required to stand on and is then kicked away, has also been used.
Suspension hanging
Suspension hanging is similar to the short drop, except the gallows themselves are movable, so that the noose can be raised once the condemned is in place. This method is currently used in Iran, where tank gun barrels or mobile cranes are used to hoist the condemned into the air. Similar methods involve running the rope through a pulley to allow the raising of the person.
Standard drop
The standard drop, which arrived as calculated in English units, involves a drop of between four and six feet (1.2 to 1.8 m) and came into use in the mid-19th century, in English-speaking countries and those where judicial systems were under English influence. It was considered an advance on the short drop because it was intended to be sufficient to break the person’s neck, causing immediate paralysis and immobilization (and probable immediate unconsciousness). This method was used to execute condemned Nazis after the Nuremberg Trials.
Long drop
This process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced in 1872 by William Marwood as a scientific advancement to the standard drop. Instead of everyone falling the same standard distance, the person’s weight was 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.
Prior to 1892, the drop was between four and ten feet (about one to three meters), depending on the weight of the body, and was calculated to deliver a force of 1,260 lbf (5,600 newtons or 572 kgf), which fractured the neck at either the 2nd and 3rd or 4th and 5th cervical vertebrae. However, this force resulted in some decapitations, such as the famous case of “Black Jack” Tom Ketchum in New Mexico in 1901. 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 force delivered was reduced to about 1,000 lbf (4,400 N or 450 kgf). The decapitation of a female inmate during a botched hanging in 1930 led the state of Arizona to switch to the gas chamber as its primary execution method, on the grounds that it was believed more humane.[3] One of the more recent decapitations as a result of the long drop occurred when Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti was hanged in Iraq in 2007.
As suicide
Hanging is a common method of suicide. The materials necessary for suicide by hanging are easily available to the average person, compared with firearms or lethal poison. Full suspension is not required, and for this reason hanging is especially commonplace among suicidal prisoners. A type of hanging comparable to full suspension hanging may be obtained by self-strangulation using a ligature of the neck and only partial weight of the body (partial suspension). This method is dependent on unconsciousness produced by arterial blood flow restriction while the breath is held.
In Canada, hanging is the most common method of suicide.[4], and in the U.S., hanging is the second most common method after firearms.[5] In Great Britain, where firearms are less easily available, as of 2001 hanging was the most common method among men and the second-most commonplace among women (after poisoning).[
