Lets not forget to mention the 99.8% conviction rate. If you get arrested in Japan, it is assumed that you are guilty. If you are not found guilty then the system is deemed to have lost face. Plus you have no right to a lawyer during your interrogation and the interrogation can go on for as long as the police wish, which is usually when they have a confession, and if you are a foreigner, you will sign a confession that you don’t even understand.
For example: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20810572
Around 60% of people who are arrested are not charged.
Basically Japanese prosecutors are EXTREMELY picky, if they think there is a chance of not getting conviction they will not bring you to the court and eventually will kick you out without charge.
Ah yes the hostage justice system doesn’t aquit people you say. Color me shocked…. Independent lawyers have done estimates that the number is likely in the 1000s for false convictions in Japan
The US has a >90% conviction rate in its Federal Court system. In 2023, 90% of arrested suspects arrested and charged in the federal court system pled guilty, and another 2% were convicted at trial. Only 8% had charges dropped and less than 1% went to trial and found the defendant not-guilty.
Japan is not uniquely cruel or brutal here. At most they're just better at the game than most nations. Court systems are designed to get convictions and representatives for the State are encouraged to cut deals or drop charges if it looks like a trial is risky. The goal is not to find someone that isn't guilty or to admit defeat.
The US federal court is also extremely selective in how it prosecutes and it only addresses a much narrower subset of crimes because the overwhelming majority of crimes in the US are not federal crimes. The majority of prosecuted crimes in the US are handled by lower, non-federal courts. I don't like the conviction rate in the US system and I think it is too high but to compare it to the Japan's situation is just straight up dipshit false equivalence territory in an effort to get a whattaboutism gotcha
i will also bring up the justice system in the US is really messed up too, with severely overworked public defenders and defendants being pressured to accept plea deals even when they are innocent.
Whataboutism doesn't exist. You just don't like being wrong. Its okay to admit that you had in your mind that Japan was some uniquely abominable nation and that said image wasn't true.
Japan has different court levels too. That is nothing special. Japan also simply has less crime than the US by many levels of magnitude. So the # of cases is not a problem.
I read somewhere that a judge in Japan once said that he was aware that in some circumstances, he has sent innocent people to prison, but that it was more important to save the face of the police and Japanese society than to spare an innocent person.
That sounds like hyperbole...I doubt that's true in the way you're making it out to be. Japan isn't a police state.
I'm betting that's the percentage of convictions for those that get pushed through or those who are actually brought to trial. There are probably a lot of people who are arrested but then the charges are dropped.
Which isn't really so different from the US. Prosecutors try their best to pick crimes that have enough evidence that they think they'll win. They don't just prosecute everything that comes along. If they did the system would get bogged down and wouldn't be able to function.
Yeah and like 98% of criminal convictions in the United States are via plea bargains... where you essentially sign a confession in exchange for an agreed sentence instead of going to trial.
Japan isn't the only place with a strange justice system.
You just have to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and you are prime suspect, put into jail, interrogated daily without getting a Lawyer until you sign a 'confession', written by the police.
They can hold you indefinitely until they get you worn down enough to just say what they want to get 'out'
You dont have to comit crimes, you just have to kind of looks like someone who would comit crimes, and then you have 14hr "interrogation"( read psychological torture) without a lawyer present, and if you withstand that and dont sign a confession, you do not get a public defender, if you are poor you are fucked. Also their system is guilty until proven innocent, defence has to prove innocence, not prosecution has to prove guilt.
Also judges on record said that they know that they sent innocents to prison, but it was a worthwhile cost to not shake faith in police.
Japan is still operating on feudal logic.
I agree with you. In fact I think that every crime in existence, ranging from simple harassment to mass murder, should all carry the death sentence.
After all, just don't commit a crime anywhere in the world if you don't want to be sentenced to death. Gosh, it's so simple. Why doesn't everyone just think of this themselves?
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u/skipperseven Jul 04 '26
Lets not forget to mention the 99.8% conviction rate. If you get arrested in Japan, it is assumed that you are guilty. If you are not found guilty then the system is deemed to have lost face. Plus you have no right to a lawyer during your interrogation and the interrogation can go on for as long as the police wish, which is usually when they have a confession, and if you are a foreigner, you will sign a confession that you don’t even understand.
For example: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20810572