In the past, the Day Journal filled in by jailers of Victoria Prison or Superintendents of Stanley Prison sometimes had brief remarks - "Prisoner executed according to law". Execution was never very common in those days. Death penalties were usually handed down by courts only for murder, piracy and kidnapping of a serious nature. Correctional staff would carry out executions in accordance with court sentences.

The condemned men were accommodated in the six cells of H Block (commonly known as condemned block) at Stanley Prison.

Several days before an execution, there would be heavy thumping sounds coming behind the closed door at the end of the corridor. These were the sounds made by the hangman when he dropped sandbags of approximately the condemned man's weight through the trapdoor to test the hanging instruments and tighten the rope.

Several hours before an execution, a chaplain would come into the cell to provide counselling for the condemned man, who would then enjoy the last meal specially cooked for him. The condemned man would normally be executed at dawn.

The final moment came with the hangman entering the cell to shackle the condemned prisoner with leather thongs. With the assistance of the staff, the condemned prisoner would enter the execution chamber, where a knotted noose was looped around his neck, and a heavy, rock-hard knot behind his ear. There would be a canvas hood covering his head, and the chaplain would murmur the final few consoling words. Finally, the hangman would pull a lever to open the trapdoor and the prisoner would fall into a pit of about three metres in depth. The knot behind his ear would be pulled sharply by the prisoner’s weight at the end of the fall, breaking his neck and causing immediate death.

Thirty minutes later, a prison medical officer would examine the body and formally pronounce the death of the prisoner.

In 1993, the Government amended the law to abolish the death penalty. In 1997, Mr TUNG Chee-hwa, the then Chief Executive responded to a question about the resumption of death penalty. His answer was a firm negative. In fact, the condemned block and execution chamber were altered to a new Stanley Prison hospital in 1996.

Since then, life imprisonment has been the most severe punishment in Hong Kong. There is a major difference between the equipment of a present cell and an old one: the new cell is equipped with a toilet with a modernised flushing system, while the old cell had two buckets - a red bucket to contain human waste and a yellow bucket for fresh water.