How Criminal Suspects in Japan are Denied Due Process and Fair Trials

3 comments

1. To combat availability bias in reporting it’s better to look at the facts objectively rather than trying to understand a problem with one or two subjective examples meant to tug on heart strings.

   I have no love for police but I really hate this style of reporting.

   From my perspective the valid criticisms here are:

   1. Detention period (23 days is way too long without being charged with a crime).

   2. Interrogation practices. There are shūkai horror stories of sleep deprivation and coerced confessions.

   3. Detention practices. This appears to be an issue in police and immigration detainment facilities.

   What isn’t mentioned here is that crime in Japan has been on a decline for nearly a decade.

   There are less and less crimes reported and committed every single year.

   A comparison with other G7 countries which average 5 million crimes per year shows that Japan’s is in the hundreds of thousands and declining.

   Source: https://www.npa.go.jp/english/crime_situation_in_2021_en.pdf

   So for the full picture we have a country with an extremely low crime rate and an extremely high conviction rate (no longer 99% btw).

   What can you do to avoid abuse by authorities here and abroad?

   1. Don’t commit crimes (pretty obvious)
   2. Contact your embassy
   3. Ask for a lawyer
   4. DO NOT TALK TO POLICE
   5. DO NOT CONFESS

   If all else fails pull a Carlos Ghosn.

   The reality is there is very little you or I can do against a corrupt criminal justice system except to escape its jurisdiction.

   It’s worth mentioning that I left America because of police treatment of minorities, and in my experience Japan (while not perfect) isn’t even a runner up in the systematic abuse or police misconduct Olympics.

2. Japan is the criminal justice equivalent of authoritarian regimes not realizing that getting 99% of the vote isn’t making you look good

3. These kind of these face severe backlash from those unwilling to criticize Japan. This is easily the worst part about Japan. If you are suspected of a crime to the point of arrest you are truly truly screwed. You can profess your innocence but they will destroy your life in order to save face. They will renew your detention, deny you care, abuse you, and lie to you.

   What you should take away is first of all don’t commit any crime at all. Second, if you are falsely accused don’t talk to the police. Talk to your lawyer. Third, if police need to question you, they don’t have the evidence to convict you.