thomas
Jan 14, 2001, 16:00
If you are genuinely interested in information on Japan's criminal justice system, pleaase check out the following site expanding on 'criminal trends', on the old and the new Juvenile Law and on the Juvenile Justice System in general:
http://www.japanreference.com/cgi-bin/jump.cgi?ID=3369
There are also some interesting artciles on Japan's 'prison industry'.
Below you'll find an article posted in Japan Echo in 1998:
JAPAN ECHO Vol. 25, No. 3, June 1998
Problems Among Japan's Young
Until quite recently, crimes committed by juveniles (aged 14 to 19) were seen as limited to a small segment of that population, and schools were considered to be safe places. Last year, however, saw the highest number of youth crimes since 1975. Those aged 14 to 19 comprise only 9% of Japan's population, but accounted for 34% of the serious crimes of murder and robbery, and fully 45% of violent crimes including assault and battery. The number of crimes where the young perpetrators wielded knives also leapt, drawing attention as a serious social problem and spurring a spate of published articles on the juvenile crime wave.
In the first two months of 1998, according to the National Police Agency, a total of 38 crimes have been committed by juveniles armed with knives, including 7 murders, 12 robberies, and 11 physical attacks. Middle school students (grades seven through nine) have been arrested in 19 of these cases. In late January in the city of Kuroiso, Tochigi Prefecture, an eighth grader attacked and killed his English teacher, who had admonished him for being late to class, with a butterfly knife. February saw a butterfly knife used in another assault when a ninth grader from Tokyo's Kôtô Ward attacked a police officer in an attempt to wrest away his pistol. In Kobe, another ninth grader was arrested for attempted robbery after holding up a post office with a kitchen knife for money to satisfy a desire to travel overseas. A Fukushima Prefecture eighth grader looking for cash to buy comic books robbed a supermarket customer at knifepoint, and in Yamanashi City, a ninth-grade boy slashed a female high school student. The incidents continued into March: A Saitama Prefecture seventh grader and an eighth grader in the city of Nagoya each attacked a classmate; the former--a victim of bullying--killed his tormentor.
These children do not come from impoverished backgrounds or broken homes. Fully four-fifths of the juveniles charged with crimes report their families as being middle-class, and most of them have both parents living at home. And juvenile crime, which used to be centered on urban areas offering many temptations for the impressionable young, has spread throughout the country. In short, crime committed by youths has changed rapidly, becoming both more widespread and more serious, than the delinquency of the past.
Examining some characteristics of the crime today shows that the problem behavior that could serve as a warning sign for juvenile crime often crops up outside the school and the home. Signs of impending trouble have, moreover, become more difficult for adults to spot as adolescents have consciously opted to conceal their questionable actions from teachers and parents. This has led to the labeling of many crimes as "sudden, unexpected outbursts" from otherwise quiet children. Another characteristic common to many of the cases lies in the children's inability to control their desires. The main motive in many of the crimes has been to get money for entertainment. Many of the crimes can also be said to have been sparked by outside influences--the flood of crime-related information provided by the media, or the urgings of friends to join in their wild behavior. Also, these perpetrators generally express remorse for their actions during the counseling process, but this is done for the sake of appearances, and the youths do not seem to truly understand the significance of what they have done.
Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryûtarô, taking the situation very seriously, assembled a conference to discuss issues related to the young people who will be responsible for Japan in the coming century. The gathering was attended by representatives from the world of education, the media, the police, and parent-teacher associations. I, too, attended this conference, where we sought steps to take in response to this social ill. Discussions at the conference touched on a wide range of perspectives in the search for effective measures. The problem is not a simple one, though, connected as it is with the educational and disciplinary methods and the values that have accumulated in the half century since the end of World War II.
Some participants saw a cause of juvenile crime in the excessive value placed on individuality and personal freedom in the postwar period. Others saw a need to place more emphasis on individual responsibilities, and even to reduce individual freedoms somewhat for the sake of the common good. Views were aired to the effect that lower birth rates, by causing many children to grow up with few siblings, or none at all, have led to a generation that knows little of the need for compromise. Based on this, went the argument, parents should rethink their approach to discipline beginning when their children are toddlers, and measures should be put in place to increase the number of births. Some claimed that the school system's overly severe treatment of students leads to pent-up stress among them; still others rose to counter that argument. When the topic of media influence came up, one panelist--a former president of the University of Tokyo--stated that he would like to see an end to satirical comic books mocking teachers; another participant, herself a comic illustrator, staunchly defended them, saying that there should be a variety of information available, including both mockery and praise for teachers. The debate on educational issues proved raucous and wide-ranging.
I feel the single greatest cause for the wave of juvenile crime has been our failure to instill the basic consciousness in children that tells them what they may and may not do. This is why young people are not troubled at the prospect of committing a criminal act, and why they feel no remorse after the fact. They also lack confidence in their ability to solve their problems, because we constantly harry them and rob them of the chance to take the time to ponder, worry about, and overcome problems, growing stronger and more capable in the process. This may be what drives these children to gird themselves with fancy, imported butterfly knives, trying to force others to acknowledge their own power. The weapons compensate for their lack of self-confidence.
So long as parents, teachers, and other adults have no firmly established beliefs about why a certain action is bad, and why it must not be done, we will be unable to teach those standards to our children with any confidence. It is the lack of such confidence that makes it impossible for parents and teachers to discipline and guide children convincingly and effectively. And not only is this confidence--so important for ensuring that the lessons are taken to heart--lacking, but a gulf of distrust exists between the three groups: parents, teachers, and children. I believe this alarming distrust lies at the heart of the increase in juvenile crime.
Yet another problem can be seen in the highly educated parents who cast a critical eye on their children's teachers. If these parents develop antipathy for a teacher, they immediately start talking about going to the board of education with their complaint. It is no surprise that educators are losing their confidence in this atmosphere. These parents, who themselves have no ingrained awareness of societal standards, think it undemocratic and ill-advised to push one judgment or another on their children. They seem at first glance to be understanding of their children, but they are avoiding their responsibilities as parents.
Moreover, human relations--be they between husband and wife, parent and child, teacher and student, fellow teachers, or among children--have grown shallow. A fear of treading on another's human rights has led to a weakening of personal commitments. As a result, children sense that neither parents nor teachers are truly seeing them for who they are. Some young people caught shoplifting confessed that they did it in a bid to attract their parents' attention.
To make their daily lives more enjoyable, children need places open to and managed by themselves where they can freely blow off steam. They also need to have their behavior corrected when it is wrong and to be punished when they deserve to be. Juvenile offenders must be made to pay the appropriate penalty. They need to be made to think deeply about the significance of the crimes they have committed and to repent sincerely. These steps are necessary for them to achieve maturity. I do not believe that holding back punishment, or the chance to feel remorse, because a criminal is a youth is truly to that child's benefit. (IWAO Sumiko, Editor in Chief; Professor, Keiô University).
© 1998 Japan Echo
http://www.japanreference.com/cgi-bin/jump.cgi?ID=3369
There are also some interesting artciles on Japan's 'prison industry'.
Below you'll find an article posted in Japan Echo in 1998:
JAPAN ECHO Vol. 25, No. 3, June 1998
Problems Among Japan's Young
Until quite recently, crimes committed by juveniles (aged 14 to 19) were seen as limited to a small segment of that population, and schools were considered to be safe places. Last year, however, saw the highest number of youth crimes since 1975. Those aged 14 to 19 comprise only 9% of Japan's population, but accounted for 34% of the serious crimes of murder and robbery, and fully 45% of violent crimes including assault and battery. The number of crimes where the young perpetrators wielded knives also leapt, drawing attention as a serious social problem and spurring a spate of published articles on the juvenile crime wave.
In the first two months of 1998, according to the National Police Agency, a total of 38 crimes have been committed by juveniles armed with knives, including 7 murders, 12 robberies, and 11 physical attacks. Middle school students (grades seven through nine) have been arrested in 19 of these cases. In late January in the city of Kuroiso, Tochigi Prefecture, an eighth grader attacked and killed his English teacher, who had admonished him for being late to class, with a butterfly knife. February saw a butterfly knife used in another assault when a ninth grader from Tokyo's Kôtô Ward attacked a police officer in an attempt to wrest away his pistol. In Kobe, another ninth grader was arrested for attempted robbery after holding up a post office with a kitchen knife for money to satisfy a desire to travel overseas. A Fukushima Prefecture eighth grader looking for cash to buy comic books robbed a supermarket customer at knifepoint, and in Yamanashi City, a ninth-grade boy slashed a female high school student. The incidents continued into March: A Saitama Prefecture seventh grader and an eighth grader in the city of Nagoya each attacked a classmate; the former--a victim of bullying--killed his tormentor.
These children do not come from impoverished backgrounds or broken homes. Fully four-fifths of the juveniles charged with crimes report their families as being middle-class, and most of them have both parents living at home. And juvenile crime, which used to be centered on urban areas offering many temptations for the impressionable young, has spread throughout the country. In short, crime committed by youths has changed rapidly, becoming both more widespread and more serious, than the delinquency of the past.
Examining some characteristics of the crime today shows that the problem behavior that could serve as a warning sign for juvenile crime often crops up outside the school and the home. Signs of impending trouble have, moreover, become more difficult for adults to spot as adolescents have consciously opted to conceal their questionable actions from teachers and parents. This has led to the labeling of many crimes as "sudden, unexpected outbursts" from otherwise quiet children. Another characteristic common to many of the cases lies in the children's inability to control their desires. The main motive in many of the crimes has been to get money for entertainment. Many of the crimes can also be said to have been sparked by outside influences--the flood of crime-related information provided by the media, or the urgings of friends to join in their wild behavior. Also, these perpetrators generally express remorse for their actions during the counseling process, but this is done for the sake of appearances, and the youths do not seem to truly understand the significance of what they have done.
Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryûtarô, taking the situation very seriously, assembled a conference to discuss issues related to the young people who will be responsible for Japan in the coming century. The gathering was attended by representatives from the world of education, the media, the police, and parent-teacher associations. I, too, attended this conference, where we sought steps to take in response to this social ill. Discussions at the conference touched on a wide range of perspectives in the search for effective measures. The problem is not a simple one, though, connected as it is with the educational and disciplinary methods and the values that have accumulated in the half century since the end of World War II.
Some participants saw a cause of juvenile crime in the excessive value placed on individuality and personal freedom in the postwar period. Others saw a need to place more emphasis on individual responsibilities, and even to reduce individual freedoms somewhat for the sake of the common good. Views were aired to the effect that lower birth rates, by causing many children to grow up with few siblings, or none at all, have led to a generation that knows little of the need for compromise. Based on this, went the argument, parents should rethink their approach to discipline beginning when their children are toddlers, and measures should be put in place to increase the number of births. Some claimed that the school system's overly severe treatment of students leads to pent-up stress among them; still others rose to counter that argument. When the topic of media influence came up, one panelist--a former president of the University of Tokyo--stated that he would like to see an end to satirical comic books mocking teachers; another participant, herself a comic illustrator, staunchly defended them, saying that there should be a variety of information available, including both mockery and praise for teachers. The debate on educational issues proved raucous and wide-ranging.
I feel the single greatest cause for the wave of juvenile crime has been our failure to instill the basic consciousness in children that tells them what they may and may not do. This is why young people are not troubled at the prospect of committing a criminal act, and why they feel no remorse after the fact. They also lack confidence in their ability to solve their problems, because we constantly harry them and rob them of the chance to take the time to ponder, worry about, and overcome problems, growing stronger and more capable in the process. This may be what drives these children to gird themselves with fancy, imported butterfly knives, trying to force others to acknowledge their own power. The weapons compensate for their lack of self-confidence.
So long as parents, teachers, and other adults have no firmly established beliefs about why a certain action is bad, and why it must not be done, we will be unable to teach those standards to our children with any confidence. It is the lack of such confidence that makes it impossible for parents and teachers to discipline and guide children convincingly and effectively. And not only is this confidence--so important for ensuring that the lessons are taken to heart--lacking, but a gulf of distrust exists between the three groups: parents, teachers, and children. I believe this alarming distrust lies at the heart of the increase in juvenile crime.
Yet another problem can be seen in the highly educated parents who cast a critical eye on their children's teachers. If these parents develop antipathy for a teacher, they immediately start talking about going to the board of education with their complaint. It is no surprise that educators are losing their confidence in this atmosphere. These parents, who themselves have no ingrained awareness of societal standards, think it undemocratic and ill-advised to push one judgment or another on their children. They seem at first glance to be understanding of their children, but they are avoiding their responsibilities as parents.
Moreover, human relations--be they between husband and wife, parent and child, teacher and student, fellow teachers, or among children--have grown shallow. A fear of treading on another's human rights has led to a weakening of personal commitments. As a result, children sense that neither parents nor teachers are truly seeing them for who they are. Some young people caught shoplifting confessed that they did it in a bid to attract their parents' attention.
To make their daily lives more enjoyable, children need places open to and managed by themselves where they can freely blow off steam. They also need to have their behavior corrected when it is wrong and to be punished when they deserve to be. Juvenile offenders must be made to pay the appropriate penalty. They need to be made to think deeply about the significance of the crimes they have committed and to repent sincerely. These steps are necessary for them to achieve maturity. I do not believe that holding back punishment, or the chance to feel remorse, because a criminal is a youth is truly to that child's benefit. (IWAO Sumiko, Editor in Chief; Professor, Keiô University).
© 1998 Japan Echo