Death Penalty in Japan: Necessary or not?

Presentation on theme: "Death Penalty in Japan: Necessary or not?"— Presentation transcript:

1 Death Penalty in Japan: Necessary or not?
B17524 Ririko Horiuchi ・Japan is one of the few developed country which still have the system of death penalty ・Let’s take a look at the map from Amnesty

2 Figure 1 Afghanistan China Iraq Iran United States Japan North Korea
Malaysia Vietnam ・These countries executed criminals last year ・Among them, the country which is so-called “developed country” is only US and Japan ・some of the states in the US have already abolished it. In other words, Japan is unique country in terms of still having it ・Let’s check the graph about statistics of death penalty in Japan Saudi Arabia Somalia Amnesty International Japan (2017)

3 Figure 2:Statistics about death penalty in Japan(2005-2017)
・Blue means the number of people who are sentenced to death, ant yellow means the number ~ who are executed ・yellow line repeatedly goes up and down ・in this year, 13 people were executed almost at the same time Amnesty International Japan (2017)

4 ・they are the member of Aum Shinrikyo and executed almost at the same time
・many countries criticized Japan about it ・it’s time to reconsider about death penalty NHK NEWS WEB(2018)

5 Is Death Penalty in Japan…
？ Necessary Unnecessary

6 Outline 1. Introduction 2. Defining Term 3. Necessary 4. Unnecessary 5. Analysis 6. Conclusion ・today’s title is “death penalty in Japan~” so I’ll define that necessary for what

7 Necessary For… Mental health Public security
・I define that death penalty is necessary for mental health of the Japanese and public security in Japanese society ・if I paraphrase today’s title...

8 Is death penalty necessary or not for Japan?
Is death penalty in Japan necessary or not for mental health and public security in Japanese society? ・日本における死刑制度は日本の人々のメンタルヘルス（精神的な健康）と日本社会の治安にとって必要かそうでないか

9 Outline 1. Introduction 2. Defining Term 3. Necessary 4. Unnecessary 5. Analysis 6. Conclusion

10 3. Necessary 3.1 Re-offence rate is increasing 3.2 Public opinion
・Re-offence means 再犯 ・let’s take a look at the graph of it

11 Figure 4 Figure 3 MOJ (2017) MOJ (2010)
・blue means the number of criminals who committed a crime for the first time, and red means the number of second offenders ・Re-offence rate is gradually getting higher and higher, and in 2016, it marked about 50% ・Even though I focus on only serious crimes, re-offence rate is still high, 35% ・let’s check about what percentage of the criminals are second offender MOJ (2017) MOJ (2010)

12 ・ここは複雑なので日本語で説明 Asahi Shimbun (2007)

13 Mental health Public security
・Preventing re-offence directly connect to public security in Japanese society

14 3. Necessary 3.1 Possibility of re-offence 3.2 Public opinion
I have a mini-quiz for you

15 Mini-quiz ― What percent of the Japanese…
①　57.4% ②　70.2% ③ 80.3% ・What percentage of the Japanese people who were interviewed are approving death penalty? Plz choose 1 answer and raise your hands. I give you 5 seconds for thinking time

16 Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2014)
Figure 6 ・According to cabinet office, about 80% of the Japanese think that death penalty is unavoidable But ‘unavoidable’ is a passive word, so I have one more survey Cabinet Office, Government of Japan (2014)

17 Figure 7: Survey on the Death Penalty
・according to this survey, about half of the Japanese think that death penalty is absolutely necessary for Japan ・Therefore, death penalty is supported by strong public opinion Asahi Shimbun Digital (2018)

18 Mental health Public security
・since many Japanese people think death penalty is necessary, they may feel anxious if it is abolished ・death penalty is necessary for Japan to keep people’s stable mental condition

19 Outline 1. Introduction 2. Defining Term 3. Necessary 4. Unnecessary 5. Analysis 6. Conclusion

20 4. Unnecessary 4.1 Risk of false charge 4.2 Human rights / cruelty
・There are 4 big false accusation cases in Japan

21 False charge cases in Japan
Case of Menda Case of Saitagawa Case of Shimada Case of Matsuyama (・Case of Izuka) ・In these 4 cases, they could prove their innocence before being executed ・however, in this case, he had already been executed even though there is a high possibility that it was false charge Asahi Shimbun (2009) (Shoji 2009:22)

22 Case of Hakamata ・Professional boxer ・sentenced to death in 1980
・released in 2014 ・still fighting to win his innocence ・he was arrested on a charge of murder attended with robbery ・he maintained his innocence ・his situation in the prison is explained as follows

23 袴田さんは死刑が確定して以降、だんだん手紙の内容がおか しくなってきてしまったのですが、ついにここ10年以上は家 族との面会もしなくなってしまっています。特に確定死刑囚 については面会が厳しく制限されているわけですが、袴田秀 子さんらの家族との面会も拒否されました。(中略) 顔にお 菓子の袋をかぶって異様な状態で歩いていたとか、カニ歩き みたいに横に歩いて異様な行動していたとか、あるいは食べ 物は全部セッケンや洗剤で洗わないとだめだとか、もうどう 考えても普通じゃないなということが書かれた上で、でも日 常生活には影響がないので正常ですと言っているのです。 ・if he can succeed in proving his innocence, his lost time will never come back False charge completely messed up his life (Shoji 2009:70)

24 Mental health Public security
・if false charges are happened, police will lose people’s trust ・In such society, it will be difficult for police to maintain public security in Japan

25 4. Unnecessary 4.1 Risk of false charge 4.2 Human rights / cruelty
For Prisoners ・I divide it into… For prison officers

26 Burden of prisoners Prisoners are typically only given a few hours’ notice before execution, but some may be given no warning at all. Inmates(=Prisoners) are kept in isolation suffering the anguish(=worry) of never knowing when they are going to be put to death – sometimes for decades. Their families are usually informed only after the execution has taken place. There is no way to know who could be next. Contact with the outside world is limited to infrequent and supervised visits from family, lawyers or other approved visitors. ・although hanging(絞首刑) can’t be ignored, the way of execution is also very cruel ・next, burden of prison officers The japan times (2018)

27 Burden of prison officers
・prison officers are hurt mentally because some of them have to press the button which operate the machine KOUMUIN Research Institute (2018)

28 Burden of prison officers
・they also have to maintain criminal’s stable mental condition until they are executed KOUMUIN Research Institute (2018)

29 Mental health Public security
・in other words, our mental health make a sacrifice of prison officers’ and prisoners’ mental

30 Outline 1. Introduction 2. Defining Term 3. Necessary 4. Unnecessary 5. Analysis 6. Conclusion

31 3. Analysis for Necessary
3.1 Re-offence rate is increasing 3.2 Public opinion ・I’ll show you the graph of re-offence rate again

32 再犯率 ＝ 再犯者率 ??? MOJ (2017) ・as you can see, this is not 再犯率 but 再犯者率
・Is 再犯者率 same as 再犯率？―the answer is no, it’s different MOJ (2017)

33 再犯率 再犯者率 再び罪を犯した人 ―――――――― 罪を犯した人 再犯者 ―――――― 検挙された人
・and few years ago, government instituted a new law about re-offence Yahoo! Japan News (2016)

34 ・and few years ago, government instituted a new law about re-offence
Yahoo! Japan News (2016)

35 The movement of Japanese government
・thanks to this law, prisoners who are released from prison can be received various support (ex: employment,apartment) Asahi Shimbun (2016)

36 3. Analysis for Necessary
3.1 Re-offence rate is increasing 3.2 Public opinion ・the situation is gradually changed but the fact remains that there are still many second offender

37 3. Analysis for Necessary
3.1 Re-offence rate is increasing 3.2 Public opinion ・in necessary part, I showed two surveys, and now I have another survey about death penalty

38 Figure 8 : How well do you know about the system of death penalty?
・more than 42% of the Japanese said that if anything I know about death penalty well ・but let’s compare this survey and past one Asahi Shimbun Digital (2018)

39 Inconsistency ・in this survey, they said that death penalty is absolutely necessary but in this survey, they said that if anything I know well about it ・what I’m trying to say is, many Japanese think death penalty is absolutely necessary although they don’t know about it well ・there is also another problem

40 Lack of the freedom of information?
・Japanese government won’t provide the Japanese with enough information of death penalty ・thus, death penalty in Japan is wrapped in mystery Amnesty International Japan (2018)

41 3. Analysis for Necessary
3.1 Re-offence rate is increasing 3.2 Public opinion

42 Outline 1. Introduction 2. Defining Term 3. Necessary 4. Unnecessary 5. Analysis 6. Conclusion

43 4. Analysis for Unnecessary
4.1 Risk of false charge 4.2 Human rights / cruelty ・same as that it is impossible to prevent all crimes itself, it is impossible to prevent all false charges ・now people can prove their innocence easier than before ・there is one example of it

44 裁判所 有罪 無罪につながる新たな証拠が見つかる等 裁判やり直しの訴え 新しい証拠等を調べる 再審の決定
・this man was arrested on a charge of murder ・but his retrial was allowed and there is high possibility that he can prove his innocence ・it means that Japanese court system is working well Mainichi Shimbun (2018)

45 False charge cases in Japan
Case of Menda Case of Saitagawa Case of Shimada Case of Matsuyama in 1952 in 1957 in 1958 (・Case of Izuka) ・as I said before, there were 4 big false charge cases in Japan but all of them were happened long time ago except case of Izuka ・these false charge cases were caused by the old type of DNA test and forcing a confession, which is also old type of investigation in 2006 Asahi Shimbun (2009) (Shoji 2009:22)

46 4. Analysis for Unnecessary
4.1 Risk of false charge 4.2 Human rights / cruelty ・now DNA test is improved and investigation is visualized, so there is little possibility that false charges are happened ・but we still can’t eliminate a possibility of false charge

47 4. Analysis for Unnecessary
4.1 Risk of false charge 4.2 Human rights / cruelty ・I’ll show you one example of death-row prisoners’ daily life

48 Death-row prisoners’ day
7:00 get up 7:15 inspection 7:25 eat breakfast 9:45 do exercise, listen to the radio, be supplied hot water for their coffee, cup noodles, etc 11:50 eat lunch, listen to the radio (includes news program) 14:45 do exercise, listen to the radio, be supplied hot water 16:20 eat dinner 16:40 inspection, listen to the radio (includes news program) 21:00 go to bed ※Prisoners take a bath for 15 minutes (twice a week / three times a week during summer) ・in addition to this, they can watch TV and movies, wear their own clothes, and so on ・non death-row prisoners have to work most of a day but they don’t have to do it because their punishment is death, not working ・their daily life seems healthy and not so tough (Toshio 2010:56)

49 ・受刑者に何も約束できないし、何も応えることができない 苦しさを感じます。（中略） 仮釈放がなくなったいまは、 一緒になって落ち込んでいるしかないのです。 ・所長も幹部も怖がって、構内の巡回視察をしなくなりまし た。無期と短期刑の受刑者を一緒に処遇していますが、いま までは協力的だった両者の間のトラブルが多くなりました。 刑務官に対する怨念も半端じゃなくなっています。どんなに 一生懸命務めても出所できないんですから、いつ暴動や集団 脱獄が起きてもおかしくないですよ…… ・it is very difficult for prisoners who are sentenced to life in prison to be released so they have no hope ・prison officers have difficulty in maintaining their motivation to live (Toshio 2010:87)

50 4. Analysis for Unnecessary
4.1 Risk of false charge 4.2 Human rights / cruelty ・there are some counter evidence for 4.2, however, death penalty is still cruel in many ways

51 Outline 1. Introduction 2. Defining Term 3. Necessary 4. Unnecessary 5. Analysis 6. Conclusion

52

53 Death Penalty in Japan is…
Unnecessary

54 Outline 1. Introduction 2. Defining Term 3. Necessary 4. Unnecessary 5. Analysis 6. Conclusion

55 Thank you for your attention!