General Japanese Culture Thread

"The Japanese criminal justice system is focused on interrogation. The aim is getting a confession," explains Nobuo Gohara, who spent 23 years in the prosecutor's office before resigning. He now works in private practice and campaigns for reform of Japan's justice system.

"A suspect who admits to the crime is released from imprisonment," Mr Gohara tells me. "But if a person refuses to admit to a crime, the prosecutor's office will strongly oppose release until the suspect makes a confession."

That isn't so different from how we do things. Until quite recently, it was standard practice in many jurisdictions in the US to interrogate a suspect without sleep or breaks for the days or weeks it took to get a public defender appointed (they do this primarily with poor suspects).

As for Ghosen himself: ""Officially there is presumption of innocence" says Mr Gohara. "But even if the suspect is not guilty, there is an advantage for them to admit to the crime. This is the most evil effect of Japan's hostage justice system."

After the first 23 days of detention the ordeal is not necessarily over. Prosecutors are permitted to re-arrest a suspect on a slightly different accusation, with approval from the courts. The clock is then reset and another 20 days of interrogation begin.

This is what happened to Carlos Ghosn, twice. In all he was held in interrogation for 53 days before being formally indicted."

That's harsh, but I don't know kind of evidence they have against him. "So why is the special investigation unit of the Tokyo prosecutor's office pursuing this case so hard? Mr Ishikawa believes Mr Ghosn's real crime, in the eyes of Japan's prosecutorial elite, is greed. He was the first CEO in Japan to earn millions of dollars a year, and that changed Japanese corporate culture.

"The Tokyo prosecutor's office… is driven by their belief that they are the gatekeepers of justice. In an era of economic inequality, they want to make their name as the ones who nailed the rich."

That's inherently unfair, and Ghosen should complain about it. I understand that there is a reform movement underway. maybe they need their own version of "Making a Murderer."

Frankly, few things in this world are as bad as a Justice System that encourages vigilantism.

It's just asking for disaster to happen, little else.

As much as I occasionally entertain the idea of eating the rich, that is so not the way to go about it.

Especially when you still hear about the police cozying up to the yakuza...

So basically this is a government that is punishing someone for becoming "too" rich and successful.

This sort of news only reinforces the lolbertarians' worldview.

Not the government, the prosecutors. To give you an idea, the prosecutor general is more powerful than the Vice Minister of Justice, despite the latter nominally being higher in the hierarchy.

Prosecutors also have the exclusive right to indict and drop the charges, making Japanese prosecutors probably the single most powerful authority in the criminal justice system.

From the BBC article:

Edited by TerminusEst on Feb 15th 2019 at 12:00:14 PM

Note that this is exactly why the first Phoenix Wright game ends on a case against one of the longest-serving and most successful prosecutors in the country, who has never lost a case - and the one time he did, he murdered the defense attorney. The man who took the fall for it was forced to submit an insanity plea and it ruined his life.

Man, and here I was thinking the police brutality element in Persona 5's Framing Device was an exaggeration.

Reality Is Unrealistic, I suppose. Guess in Real Life they would just make up something else to lock up Joker.

On the bright side, there does seem to be efforts to reform the system, which is nice, even if it'll likely take half a decade to take, best case scenario.

Edited by HailMuffins on Feb 15th 2019 at 8:08:49 AM

Yeah, it's been mentioned before that the Ace Attorney series is a not so subtle dig at Japan's legal system.

The strong bias against defense is why Phoenix Wright, a defense attorney, has such a crappy record of wins. That he has any wins at all is a sign of his ability.

Edited by M84 on Feb 15th 2019 at 7:18:49 PM

I have always heard that it is satire not in that it exaggerates the legal system, but that it exaggerates the characters.

....

I have admitantly never played it, but every thing I hear about it kind of plays into that.

Honestly this sums up about half of Japanese culture right now, the younger generations want to change things.... but with how seniority works... its just going to take time. :/

Edited by Imca on Feb 15th 2019 at 3:32:42 AM

Not to generalize too much, but that's most of the world right about now: progressive values will eventually take root, but only after the older generation is phased out.

That is not to say older people can't be progressive, of course, but, well, most aren't.

Momo, the scary-looking harpy sculpture from Japan, is the centerpiece of a string of videos mysteriously being uploaded to Youtube Kids with subliminal messages telling children to commit suicide.

I thought that entire thing was a hoax that evolved into a panic?

It's a hoax through and through. Hasn't stopped people from falling for it anyhow.

Kind of idiotic - even the photoshop used for it was a third-rate hack job.

EDIT: Alright, swapped it out.

Edited by TechPriest90 on Mar 1st 2019 at 5:47:34 AM

Ehh, we don't use that word anymore outside of technical terms like "fire retardant".

It's a hoax, and not really relevant to Japanese culture any more than SCP-173 is.

Geezus yeah, its weird as hell Phoenix Wright is actually rather accurate about Japanese legal system and what it feels like ._. That is unfair as hell

BTW, if people don't confess anything, can they die under interrogation? And if that happens, is there any actual internal investigation or is the system corrupt enough to sweep cases like that away?

Edited by SpookyMask on Mar 4th 2019 at 6:09:50 PM

There have been some deaths in custody under "suspicious circumstances" and people have been punished for it. It's a bit iffy if all of them can be attributed to abuse or whether it was just poor medical care and general incompetence (i.e. accidental).

Edited by TerminusEst on Mar 4th 2019 at 10:01:40 AM

In this situation, there isn't a meaningful difference between abuse and poor medical care/ incompetency.

Of course there is. Malicious intent is quite different from poor preparation.

Not that it doesn't stem from the same source; suspected criminals aren't worth anything.

Edited by TerminusEst on Mar 8th 2019 at 11:57:34 AM

It could be argued that any state institution that holds citizens in custody has a responsibility and an obligation to provide necessary medical care for them. Especially since Japan has mandatory national health insurance.

Then again, I'm American, so what do I know about the state providing basic human care to its constituents...

Edited by RedSavant on Mar 9th 2019 at 1:10:49 PM

It does, there's no "arguing" on that front, the moment the moment the State takes someone into custody it is responsible for that person's physical and mental well-being, and whoever was responsible for the above incident should at the very least be fired and put on trial

I think this is probably the best thread to bring up the topic of Japan basically unpersoning Pierre Taki for his cocaine conviction, while giving Nobuhiro Watsuki an effective slap on the wrist for being a convicted pedophile. Man, you'd think those punishments should be the other way around, right?

As far as CP is concerned (as illegal media, not sexual assault which is another can of worms entirely) Japan had very lax laws regarding its status with quite a few loopholes (possession wasn't a crime, but selling was etc.). It was only in the last few years that the laws started getting stricter, but the convictions have always been pretty light if it was only possession IIRC.

Drugs are dealt with extreme prejudice by both police, the prosecution and some of the yakuza (really depends on the group and a degree of hypocricy is involved). Substance abuse is considered to be done by the scum of the Earth, with little regard given to those who do it.

I suspect CP has been a problem for the system largely due to taboos and unwillingness to deal with sexual issues in general (or admitting that there are any). Drug trade and use is often considered a very distinct underworld thing i.e. antisocial, so it can be dealt with certainty and harshness due to its evil.

Edited by TerminusEst on Mar 19th 2019 at 4:31:48 AM

Yup. Never, ever, ever do drugs in Japan. I believe even possession of marijuana is a felony here.

If you wanted to overanalyze it I guess you could probably see it as an extension of what Terminus said - drugs are seen as antisocial, because they're not a socially acceptable means of "rebelling" the way alcohol is. It's perfectly fine to go out drinking, get smashed, put your tie on your head, etc.; it's not only socially acceptable, it's expected. That's what letting off steam looks like if you're a salaryman. Salarymen drink; they don't smoke weed.

Likewise, you could probably argue that pedophilia is normalized here, though there's a whole bunch of arguments over the legality/morality of entirely drawn content and so on that is probably outside the scope of this thread and/or forum rules. It's normalized and, to an extent, expected here now. It's just not something you talk about.