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One of the reasons for that is that Japanese prosecutors are much more reluctant to take a case to court which they are not 100% sure will lead to conviction, m

One of the reasons for that is that Japanese prosecutors are much more reluctant to take a case to court which they are not 100% sure will lead to conviction, meaning the overall number of courtcases are smaller. That said, there are reportedly very real problems with a) foreigners getting a fair trial and b) confession being forced under duress.

missosoup 7y ago
Just a reminder that you're not entitled to having a lawyer present while Japanese police interrogate you. Once arrested in Japan, you essentially lose all basic rights. The police can also keep you in jail for months without charging you with anything. This pretty much ends your career and family life. All of the above has happened to e.g. tourists accused of stealing a single dumpling. Forced confessions are the bulk of what makes up that 99% conviction rate. Japanese lawyers always advise their clients to produce a confession regardless of the circumstances. Non-natives are strongly advised to follow the law to the very letter and that they're fucked if ever arrested no matter how insignificant the infringement might first appear - and police will downplay the severity of infringement to make you confess. The Japanese criminal justice system is only marginally better than Chinese. It's one of the areas where they just failed to advance as a society.
- crazygringo 7y ago
  Do you have a source for a tourist being arrested and held for months for stealing a single dumpling? I don't doubt there are problems, but this honestly doesn't sound plausible, and Googling I can't find any reference. I can believe a tourist being (rightly) arrested for stealing something (even if small value), and I can believe people being held in jail for months without being charged in the case of very serious suspected crimes (e.g. large-scale fraud or suspected murder), but I can't find any evidence of the two combined. You're making it sound like everyone should avoid visiting Japan for tourism at all because you might be incarcerated for months on a misunderstanding... which just doesn't match any of my experience there, or their thriving tourism industry.
- gryson 7y ago
  Technically, the police have 23 days to charge someone before they must be released. In serious crimes, police can (and likely will) re-arrest the person on a different charge. I very much doubt that the police have held someone for months for stealing a dumpling, though. In addition, for everyone mentioning the 99% conviction rate, it's important to keep the other part of that in mind as well: Japanese prosecutors typically drop ~50% of cases.
  - earthboundkid 7y ago
    I have heard in a podcast of a case where police would wait the 23 days, let you out, and then immediately bring you back in on a "new" charge.
- rangibaby 7y ago
  Japan’s 99% conviction rate comes with the 2nd lowest prison population per capita in the OECD. > The Japanese criminal justice system is only marginally better than Chinese. It's one of the areas where they just failed to advance as a society. Commit a crime in both countries and let us know which one lets you keep your kidneys.
gryson 7y ago
Japan has taken steps to remedy confessions being forced under duress. As of last year, all interrogations for serious crimes (i.e., trials that will have lay judges) must be audio and video recorded, as well as any interrogations of suspects that might have mental disabilities [1]. Of course, that doesn't address issues of lengthy imprisonment before charges are filed, but it's a step in the right direction. [1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/01/national/crime-legal/recording-interrogations-serious-cases-becomes-mandatory-japan/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/01/national/crime-...
- wrboyce 7y ago
  Seems odd, even verging on suspicious, to me that the police would be allowed to interview a suspect at all without recording the interaction.
  - gryson 7y ago
    Yet in most states in the USA, recordings are not made.
    - earthboundkid 7y ago
      I don't understand why confessions are admitted as evidence at all. Anyone can confess to anything. It's only valuable if it leads to concrete evidence, i.e., "I did it and the body is buried in the wall with the cursed beating heart."
      - gryson 7y ago
        In Japan, confessions are intended to work as you suggest: >Article 38 of Japan's Constitution categorically requires that "no person shall be convicted or punished in cases where the only proof against a suspect is his/her own confession," In practice, this constitutional requirement takes a form of safeguarding known as the "revelation of secret" (Himitsu no Bakuro, lit. "outing of secret")... >...for confession to be a valid evidence for conviction, the Japanese court requires confession to include revelation of verifiable factual matter that only the perpetrator of the crime could have known about, such as the location of an undiscovered body or the time and place the murder weapon was purchased, a fact about the crime scene, etc. Furthermore, to safeguard against the possibility that the interrogator has implanted such knowledge into the confession, the prosecutor must prove that such revelation of secret was unknown to the police until the point of confession. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> One of the reasons for that is that Japanese prosecutors are much more reluctant to take a case to court which they are not 100% sure will lead to conviction, meaning the overall number of courtcases are smaller What's the evidence for this claim? Do we have dropped cases rates for Japan versus other countries? (Reduced incarceration rates are sometimes cited. But that's impossible to separate from reduced criminality, or the legal system's propensity to jail versus punish in other ways.)
- gryson 7y ago
  Taken from Wikipedia [1], citing the paper "Why Is the Japanese Conviction Rate So High?" by Ramseyer and Rasmusen. >In the U.S., the federal government employs 27,985 lawyers and the states employ another 38,242 (of which 24,700 are state prosecutors). In Japan, with about a third of U.S. population, the entire government employs a mere 2,000. Despite Japan having a low crime rate, such numbers create a significant case overload for prosecutors. In the U.S., there are 480 arrests (96 serious cases) per year per state prosecutor. (The actual figure is lower as some are prosecuted in federal court). In Japan, the figure is 700 per year per prosecutor. In the U.S., a rough estimate is that 42% of arrests in felony cases result in prosecution - while in Japan, the figure is only 17.5%. >In murder, U.S. police arrested 19,000 people for 26,000 murders, in which 75% were prosecuted and courts convicted 12,000 people. In Japan, 1,800 people were arrested for 1,300 murders, but prosecutors tried only 43%. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...

missosoup 7y ago

Just a reminder that you're not entitled to having a lawyer present while Japanese police interrogate you. Once arrested in Japan, you essentially lose all basic rights. The police can also keep you in jail for months without charging you with anything. This pretty much ends your career and family life. All of the above has happened to e.g. tourists accused of stealing a single dumpling. Forced confessions are the bulk of what makes up that 99% conviction rate. Japanese lawyers always advise their clients to produce a confession regardless of the circumstances. Non-natives are strongly advised to follow the law to the very letter and that they're fucked if ever arrested no matter how insignificant the infringement might first appear - and police will downplay the severity of infringement to make you confess. The Japanese criminal justice system is only marginally better than Chinese. It's one of the areas where they just failed to advance as a society.

crazygringo 7y ago
Do you have a source for a tourist being arrested and held for months for stealing a single dumpling? I don't doubt there are problems, but this honestly doesn't sound plausible, and Googling I can't find any reference. I can believe a tourist being (rightly) arrested for stealing something (even if small value), and I can believe people being held in jail for months without being charged in the case of very serious suspected crimes (e.g. large-scale fraud or suspected murder), but I can't find any evidence of the two combined. You're making it sound like everyone should avoid visiting Japan for tourism at all because you might be incarcerated for months on a misunderstanding... which just doesn't match any of my experience there, or their thriving tourism industry.
gryson 7y ago
Technically, the police have 23 days to charge someone before they must be released. In serious crimes, police can (and likely will) re-arrest the person on a different charge. I very much doubt that the police have held someone for months for stealing a dumpling, though. In addition, for everyone mentioning the 99% conviction rate, it's important to keep the other part of that in mind as well: Japanese prosecutors typically drop ~50% of cases.
- earthboundkid 7y ago
  I have heard in a podcast of a case where police would wait the 23 days, let you out, and then immediately bring you back in on a "new" charge.
rangibaby 7y ago
Japan’s 99% conviction rate comes with the 2nd lowest prison population per capita in the OECD. > The Japanese criminal justice system is only marginally better than Chinese. It's one of the areas where they just failed to advance as a society. Commit a crime in both countries and let us know which one lets you keep your kidneys.

gryson 7y ago

Japan has taken steps to remedy confessions being forced under duress. As of last year, all interrogations for serious crimes (i.e., trials that will have lay judges) must be audio and video recorded, as well as any interrogations of suspects that might have mental disabilities [1]. Of course, that doesn't address issues of lengthy imprisonment before charges are filed, but it's a step in the right direction. [1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/01/national/crime-legal/recording-interrogations-serious-cases-becomes-mandatory-japan/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/01/national/crime-...

wrboyce 7y ago
Seems odd, even verging on suspicious, to me that the police would be allowed to interview a suspect at all without recording the interaction.
- gryson 7y ago
  Yet in most states in the USA, recordings are not made.
  - earthboundkid 7y ago
    I don't understand why confessions are admitted as evidence at all. Anyone can confess to anything. It's only valuable if it leads to concrete evidence, i.e., "I did it and the body is buried in the wall with the cursed beating heart."
    - gryson 7y ago
      In Japan, confessions are intended to work as you suggest: >Article 38 of Japan's Constitution categorically requires that "no person shall be convicted or punished in cases where the only proof against a suspect is his/her own confession," In practice, this constitutional requirement takes a form of safeguarding known as the "revelation of secret" (Himitsu no Bakuro, lit. "outing of secret")... >...for confession to be a valid evidence for conviction, the Japanese court requires confession to include revelation of verifiable factual matter that only the perpetrator of the crime could have known about, such as the location of an undiscovered body or the time and place the murder weapon was purchased, a fact about the crime scene, etc. Furthermore, to safeguard against the possibility that the interrogator has implanted such knowledge into the confession, the prosecutor must prove that such revelation of secret was unknown to the police until the point of confession. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> One of the reasons for that is that Japanese prosecutors are much more reluctant to take a case to court which they are not 100% sure will lead to conviction, meaning the overall number of courtcases are smaller What's the evidence for this claim? Do we have dropped cases rates for Japan versus other countries? (Reduced incarceration rates are sometimes cited. But that's impossible to separate from reduced criminality, or the legal system's propensity to jail versus punish in other ways.)

gryson 7y ago
Taken from Wikipedia [1], citing the paper "Why Is the Japanese Conviction Rate So High?" by Ramseyer and Rasmusen. >In the U.S., the federal government employs 27,985 lawyers and the states employ another 38,242 (of which 24,700 are state prosecutors). In Japan, with about a third of U.S. population, the entire government employs a mere 2,000. Despite Japan having a low crime rate, such numbers create a significant case overload for prosecutors. In the U.S., there are 480 arrests (96 serious cases) per year per state prosecutor. (The actual figure is lower as some are prosecuted in federal court). In Japan, the figure is 700 per year per prosecutor. In the U.S., a rough estimate is that 42% of arrests in felony cases result in prosecution - while in Japan, the figure is only 17.5%. >In murder, U.S. police arrested 19,000 people for 26,000 murders, in which 75% were prosecuted and courts convicted 12,000 people. In Japan, 1,800 people were arrested for 1,300 murders, but prosecutors tried only 43%. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...