3 ms·

That's assuming you have a functioning judiciary system. At 99.9% they do become the same.

jahnu 6y ago
While Japan's legal system is certainly deserving of criticism, who's isn't?, this stat is thrown around without any understanding of what it really means. What is the conviction rate in your country of residence? What does conviction rate actually mean in the context of the legal process in your country and Japan? If you don't know the detailed answers to those questions I suggest not making such grand claims about equivalence. Here is a short radio episode explaining this topic. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz3s5 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz3s5 Edit for clarity: The parent has for some reason edited their comment and now it looks like I was defending China's rate in my reply. They originally made an equivalence claim between Japan and China and I wanted to add information explaining that this stat doesn't necessarily mean what it's often at first glance interpreted to mean. The parent then replied to my comment with a reply that suggests their edit was in fact malicious. But I can't be sure of that.
- sascha_sl 6y ago
  Or you could read the source within the article, as mentioned. https://qz.com/246696/chinas-criminal-conviction-rate-is-99-9/ https://qz.com/246696/chinas-criminal-conviction-rate-is-99-...
  - jahnu 6y ago
    You edited your post to remove the Japan comparison. Why would you do that?
dan-robertson 6y ago
Japan has quite a weird judicial system. I think from a western, common law eye, it probably seems worse. In the west a prosecutor will usually bring a case if they think there is a reasonable chance of getting a conviction whereas in Japan, a prosecutor will only bring a case if they are very convinced that there will be a conviction. I think there is also some societal pressure on judges to not find people innocent, which seems pretty bad to me. Also the police basically want to extract signed confessions out of people and may often keep suspects in custody for long periods of time (without access to a lawyer or anyone else) to extract confessions. Obviously this sounds bad so in the interest of balance, let me point out that there are many problems with the US system but they are out of this comment.

While Japan's legal system is certainly deserving of criticism, who's isn't?, this stat is thrown around without any understanding of what it really means. What is the conviction rate in your country of residence? What does conviction rate actually mean in the context of the legal process in your country and Japan? If you don't know the detailed answers to those questions I suggest not making such grand claims about equivalence. Here is a short radio episode explaining this topic. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz3s5 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csz3s5 Edit for clarity: The parent has for some reason edited their comment and now it looks like I was defending China's rate in my reply. They originally made an equivalence claim between Japan and China and I wanted to add information explaining that this stat doesn't necessarily mean what it's often at first glance interpreted to mean. The parent then replied to my comment with a reply that suggests their edit was in fact malicious. But I can't be sure of that.

sascha_sl 6y ago
Or you could read the source within the article, as mentioned. https://qz.com/246696/chinas-criminal-conviction-rate-is-99-9/ https://qz.com/246696/chinas-criminal-conviction-rate-is-99-...
- jahnu 6y ago
  You edited your post to remove the Japan comparison. Why would you do that?

dan-robertson 6y ago

Japan has quite a weird judicial system. I think from a western, common law eye, it probably seems worse. In the west a prosecutor will usually bring a case if they think there is a reasonable chance of getting a conviction whereas in Japan, a prosecutor will only bring a case if they are very convinced that there will be a conviction. I think there is also some societal pressure on judges to not find people innocent, which seems pretty bad to me. Also the police basically want to extract signed confessions out of people and may often keep suspects in custody for long periods of time (without access to a lawyer or anyone else) to extract confessions. Obviously this sounds bad so in the interest of balance, let me point out that there are many problems with the US system but they are out of this comment.