Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

The politics of criminal and juvenile justice policies in Japan

  • Published:
Crime, Law and Social Change Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Japanese adult criminal statistics of the execution of the jurisdiction are highly changeable or repeatedly fluctuate according to the characteristics of the regime. However, juvenile criminal statistics have been relatively stable because juvenile justice system is different from that of adult. The reason is that the criminal justice agencies, (i.e. public prosecutors and police officers), media reports, and victims’ activities directly impact on the adult criminal statistics. Furthermore public prosecutors have the right of prosecution and also have a broad discretion in the criminal justice system. On the contrary, the public prosecutors have no power to screen cases for prosecution in the juvenile justice system; that power resides with the family court judges. The family court judges are relatively more independent by the characteristics of the regime than the prosecutors. Juvenile justice is not a reaction against political issues, and juvenile criminal statistics are not a product of the regime’s characteristics. This article suggests new ideologies about juvenile justice policies to protect individual juveniles and to prevent crimes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Hamai and Ellis challenge the myth based on data that indicate (1) the disparity between declining rates of violent crime and increasing newspaper coverage of such crime and (2) the relationship between changed police policies that require the recording of all reported crimes and the increase in recorded minor violent offenses.

  2. Article 61 of the Juvenile Law (2007) stipulated that the report of the identity of juvenile offenders shall be forbidden (in cases where a juvenile is the subject of a hearing in the family court or a person has been indicted for an offense committed while a juvenile; it is forbidden to publish articles or photos in a newspaper or other publication that interferes with the identity of the person in question by name, age, occupation, address, appearance, and so forth).

  3. The Polly Klaas case is a representative example. During a slumber party in October of 1993, twelve-year-old Polly Hannah Klaas was abducted at knifepoint from her Petaluma, California home. Thousands of residents from the surrounding community immediately responded with the largest manhunt in American history. Hundreds of selfless volunteers abandoned normal daily routines for sixty-five days. A mass distribution of two billion images of Polly was sent worldwide. On 30 November 1993, the police arrested Richard Allen Davis for violation of parole during a routine patrol, and the arresting officer recognized him from police sketches. As his palm print had been found in Klaas’s bedroom, he was charged with the crime. Davis was convicted of her murder in 1996 and sentenced to death. The world had frozen one cold evening in December, when the media had reported that Polly, America’s child, the beautiful girl with the warm brown eyes shown smiling in home videos for millions of TV viewers, had not been found alive. The country was outraged. The public cried out for change in legislation and for prevention of crime. In the wake of the murder, Polly’s father, Marc Klaas, became a child advocate and established the Klaaskids Foundation. He has made himself available to parents of kidnapped children and has appeared frequently on Larry King Live, CNN Headline News, and Nancy Grace. Politicians in California and other U.S. states supported three strikes laws, and California’s Three Strikes act was signed into law on March 8, 1994. A single case like the Polly Klaas kidnapping may excite widespread feelings of insecurity because high status victims in relatively secure environments are also vulnerable to predators. Even a single event of that kind can provoke insecurity and anger in millions of homes.

  4. The protective measures refer to dispositions by the family court judge that avoid stigma and give the most beneficial treatment to juvenile delinquents. Possible measures include placement under the supervision of probation officers, commitment to juvenile education, or placement in a training home or a house for dependent children. Another option is commitment to a juvenile training school.

  5. Japan has criminalized a variety of behaviors not previously subject to sanctions. For example, in 1991, the Japanese Diet passed the Law Regarding the Prevention of Unjust Acts by Boryokudan [Yakuza] Members (Boryokudanin ni yoru Futo na Koi Boshi nado ni Kan-suru Horitsu, or Botaiho for short). The Botaiho authorizes Japan’s Public Safety Commissions to designate organized crime groups as ‘gangs,’ enables administrative control over activities by members of these groups, creates limits on the use of gang offices, and establishes regional centers to assist the victims of organized crime and to help eradicate the groups that engage in it. The Japanese Diet passed three additional anti-organized crime laws that provide for the increased use of wiretapping and sting operations for some serious crimes, and in 1999, increased punishments for those crimes and gave wider authority to seize gangsters’ assets. Furthermore, Japan enacted its first domestic violence law in 2001.

  6. The number of executions has been steadily increasing in Japan: one in 2005, four in 2006, nine in 2007, and fifteen in 2008.

  7. Junichiro Koizumi is a Japanese politician who was the 87th Prime Minister of Japan from 2001 to 2006.

  8. The major revisions are summarized as follows: 1) Reinforcement of penalty in juvenile crime case; for example, i) the minimum age for trials in the Criminal Court System is lowered from sixteen to fourteen; and ii) juveniles who commit deliberate killings and are older than 16 at the time of the crime are transferred to the prosecutor. 2) Rationalization of juvenile trials; for example, i) institution of a three-judge panel in juvenile trials; ii) allowing prosecutors to participate in juvenile trials; and iii) the extension of the protection period in the juvenile classification home. 3) Care of victims of juvenile delinquency; for example, i) victims can consult some of the trial records and evidence in a limited range; ii) hearing of victims’ opinions at the court; and iii) notification of the decision to victims by the family court.

  9. The Ministry of Justice of Japan declared that the purpose of the amendment is not “getting tough” but treating a juvenile delinquent in the best possible way for healthy development. The amendment includes 1) reinforced right of the police in investigation of juvenile delinquency; 2) referral of under-fourteen juveniles to a correctional facility, etc.

  10. First, the investigative abilities of police officers are strengthened to include those under fourteen who have committed a crime but who are too young to be arrested and punished (Article 6 (2) of the Juvenile Law, 2007). Second, it is now possible for juveniles younger than fourteen to be sent to juvenile training schools. Previously, only juveniles over the age of fourteen could go (Article 24 (1) of the Juvenile Law, 2007). Third, family court judges can require juvenile probationers who have violated probation (either seriously or repeatedly) to go to juvenile training school (Article 26 (4) of the Juvenile Law, 2007). Last, family court judges can appoint a public defender to a juvenile who has committed a serious crime and who does not have a lawyer (Article 22 (3) of the Juvenile Law, 2007).

  11. There are five counselors (Sannzikann) at the Criminal Affairs Bureau in the Ministry of Justice and they draw or plan laws and ordinances. He is one of the counselors.

  12. Nagasaki boy kidnapping and murder (July 2003): a twelve-year-old boy killed a four-year-old boy after sexually harassing him. The juvenile murderer kidnapped the victim, who was shopping at a consumer electronics retail store, and pushed him from an eight-story parking tower. The killer said, “I stripped him naked, kicked him in the abdomen and cut him with scissors. I killed him because he screamed louder than I expected.” The offender had stripped another boy naked before this case.

  13. Sasebo girl murder (June 2004): an eleven-year-old girl, a sixth-grader of elementary school, killed her twelve-year-old classmate who wrote poems of anguish. The killer planned the murder and used a stationery cutter to stab the victim in the neck. This case drove the recent amendment of the Juvenile Law of Japan.

  14. The legislature, the executive branch, and the judiciary are basically equal to one another in the presidential system.

  15. Though general policies are made by the Ministry of Justice, the prosecution of individual cases is handled by the prosecutor.

  16. The Criminal Affairs Bureau is responsible for the overall command and supervision of the public prosecutors’ offices as regards the exercise of prosecutorial power as well as the work of planning and enforcing measures to improve the structure and administration of public prosecutors’ offices.

  17. “Generally” means, for example, to set up general guidance for crime prevention, the administrative interpretation of laws, and how to dispose of affairs related to prosecution to maintain their uniformity.

  18. The Minister of Justice, who belonged to the majority party, ordered the Prosecutor-General not to arrest the suspects of the majority party during the shipbuilding scandal of 1954.

  19. Miyazawa (2008a: 50–51) recognizes two turning points: 1) the 1997 double murder case in Kobe, which triggered public perceptions that incomprehensible crime was on the rise; and 2) the 2000 formation of the National Association of Crime Victims (NAVS), which immediately attracted support from sympathetic media, conservative politicians, and conservative professionals.

References

  1. Hamai, K., & Ellis, T. (2006). Crime and Punishment in Japan: From Re-integrative Shaming to Popular Punitivism. International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 34, 157–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Miyazawa, S. (2008b). The Politics and Punishment in the PRC and Japan: An Introduction to the Mini-symposium on East Asia. Punishment & Society, Volume, 10(1), 5–8.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Kuzuno, H. (2005). Juvenile Diversion and Get-Tough Movement in Japan. Asian Legal Information Journal, 22, 1–21.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Ryan, T. (2005). Creating ‘Problem Kids’: Juvenile Crime in Japan and Revisions to the Juvenile Act. Journal of Japanese Law, 19, 153–188.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Daily Yomiuri. (2002) Time to get tough on crime, Headline in Japan’s largest newspaper’ on 11 August 2002. Available at http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-26414482_ITM. Accessed 15 Sept 2015.

  6. Asahi Shimbun. (2005) We must protect our children from predators,’ Headline in Japan’s second-largest newspaper on Dec 2, 2005. Available at http://www.asahi.com. Accessed 16 Sept 2015.

  7. Hamai, K., & Ellis, T. (2008). Genbatsuka: Growing Penal Populism and the Changing Role of Public Prosecutors in Japan? In Globalized Penal Populism and Its Countermeasures, Japanese Journal of Sociological Criminology, 33, 67–91.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Zimring, Franklin E., Hawkins Gordon and Kamin Sam. (2001) Punishment and Democracy: Three Strikes and You’re Out in California. Oxford University Press.

  9. Leonardsen, D. (2006). Crime in Japan: Paradise Lost? Journal of Scandinavian Criminology and Crime Prevention, 7, 185–210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Miyazawa, S. (2008a). The Politics of Increasing Punitiveness and the Rising Populism in Japanese Criminal Justice Policy. Punishment & Society, Volume, 10(1), 47–78.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  11. Tachi, Yuichiro. (2003) Investigation against Corruption by Public Prosecutors in Japan” Paper Presented at the ICAC-Interpol Conference, Hong Kong, United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (UNAFEI): 22–24. Available at http://www.docstoc.com/docs/125912804/. Accessed 15 Nov 2015.

  12. Johnson, D. T. (2007b). Japanese Punishment in Comparative Perspective. Japanese Journal of Sociological Criminology, 33, 386–387.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Ishizuka, S. (2014). Punishment and Incarceration in Japan: A Net-Widening of Crime Control and a New Priority System of Prosecution. Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, 19, 227–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Ministry of Justice in Japan. White Paper on Crime. (1990–2014) Available at http://www.moj.go.jp/hakusyotokei_index.html. Accessed 10 Dec 2015.

  15. White Paper on Crime. Ministry of Justice. (1991–2014) Available at http://hakusyo1.moj.go.jp/en/nendo_nfm.html. Accessed 10 Dec 2015.

  16. Zimring, Franklin. (2013) The kid is a criminal v. The criminal is a kid: Cultural impacts on juvenile justice in the United States and Japan, honors thesis for Alexandra Schwertfeger, U.C Berkeley Department of legal studies, pp. 1–56.

  17. Juvenile Classification Center in the Ministry of Justice. (2008) Available at http://www.moj.go.jp/KYOUSEI/kyouse06.html. Accessed 27 Nov 2015.

  18. Moriyama, Tadashi. (1994) World Fact book of Criminal Justice Systems in Japan. (Takushoku University).

  19. Johnson, David T. (2007a) Crime, Punishment, and Politics in Comparative Perspective: Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Japan, in Michael Tonry (ed.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  20. Ikenaga, Tomoki. (2005) Reconsideration of Japan’s Revised Juvenile Act, and Considerations Regarding Juvenile Justice Reform. A paper presented at the Center for the Study of Law and Society Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program.

  21. Chettiar, Inimai and Alex Stamm. (2012) ‘Tough on Crime’ No Longer the American Mantra. Available at http://www.huffington post.com/ (accessed 7 Feb 2016).

  22. Feeley, Malcolm M. (2008) Three Hypotheses about Crime Developments in Japan and the West. Paper presented at the Second Anglo-Japanese Symposium on Criminal Justice and Corrections, Ryukoku University, Kyoto.

  23. Ambler, L. (2007). The People Decide: The Effect of the Introduction of the Quasi-Jury System (Saiban-In Seido) on the Death Penalty in Japan. Northwestern University Journal of International Human Rights, 6, 1–23.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Amnesty International Publications. (2011–2015) Available at www.amnesty.org.uk/world-executions-death (accessed 16 Jan 2016).

  25. Cornell Law School, Death Penalty Worldwide, (2016) Available at http://www. deathpenaltyworldwide.org/country-search-post.cfm?country=Japan (accessed 14 Feb 2016).

  26. Griffin, Patrick, Sean Addie, Benjamin Adams, and Kathy Firestine. (2011) Trying Juveniles as Adults: An Analysis of State Transfer Laws and Reporting, OJJDP publications. Available at https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/232434.pdf. Accessed 15 Jan 2016.

  27. Kukimoto, S. (2007). Juvenile Law Revision – Its meaning and prospect – (Shyounennho Kaiseino Igi to Kadai). Jurist (Jurisuto), 1341, 2–31.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Sawanobory, T. (2007). Juvenile Law (Soyeon Bub), Trans. Youn, Yong-Gui & Choi, Jong-Sik, South Korea: Kangwon University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  29. National Police Agency: Statistics of Police in Japan, Keisathuchou Toukei. (2008) Available at http://www.npa.go.jp/toukei/index.htm. Accessed 16 Oct 2015.

  30. Morita, Akira. (2002) Juvenile Justice in Japan: A Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective.” In A Century of Juvenile Justice, in M. K. Rosenheim, F. E. Zimring, D. S. Tannenhaus, and B. Dohrn (ed.), Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

  31. Johnson, David T. (2002) The Japanese Way of Justice, New York: Oxford University Press.

  32. Kondo, Hideo. (2010) Introduction to the Criminal Justice Statistics (Kejisihoutoukeinyuumonn): Juvenile delinquents policy seen from the young offenders at the juvenile correctional facilities in Japan (Shounennkannbethusyo, Shounenninn Nyuuinnsya karamita Nihonno ShounennHikou Taisaku, Chapter 5), in Koichi Hamai (ed.), Nihon Hyouronsha.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, Shandong University, 5 Hongjialou, Jinan City, Shandong Province, P.250100, China

    Jae Joon Chung

Authors
  1. Jae Joon Chung
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jae Joon Chung.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Chung, J.J. The politics of criminal and juvenile justice policies in Japan. Crime Law Soc Change 66, 359–374 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-016-9632-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-016-9632-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation