The death order from the Minister of Justice is received and performed by the High Prosecutors' offices so executions are carried out inside the detention centers of the five cities having a High Court: Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung and Hualien. Like Japan, Taiwanese death row inmates are kept in detention centers but not prisons, and are kept under harsher conditions than general prisoners. They are imprisoned 2 persons per cell (or sole imprisonment for misbehaving or very violent inmates), handcuffed and fettered all day long (although since late 2006 the Ministry of Justice is experimenting with unfettering death row inmates who behave themselves), only allowed to leave the cell half an hour a day for exercise, but are allowed to read censored newspapers and books as well as practice religious activities with permitted religious personnel.
Executions are carried out by handgun shooting aimed at the heart from the back, or aimed at the brain stem under the ear if the prisoner consents to organ donation. The execution time used to be 5AM, but was changed to 9PM in 1995 to reduce officials' workload. Executions are performed in secret: nobody is informed beforehand, including the condemned. Before the execution a last meal is served and the prisoner is prompted for any last words. The condemned prisoner is then injected with strong anaesthetic to leave him or her completely senseless, and the shooting quickly takes the prisoner's life. After execution the High Prosecutors' Office in charge will announce the execution in detail. Although the Ministry of Justice has studied other methods including hanging and lethal injection since the early 1990s, execution by shooting (performed by local bailiffs or military policemen) is the only execution method used in Taiwan to date (including military executions).
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