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Discussion (141 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
If he stabbed someone and got this treatment, it would be very different than if he had a loud but normal argument you might see in any big box store in the US.
That he doesn't go on to protest why he got locked up makes me think it was something more serious.
Some time ago (can't easily find it anymore) there was a expose on UK prisons, which was interesting without even knowing what crime the prisoner was convicted of, but turns out it was abuse of a relative.
But essentially, somebody else sent her a package with something illegal in it that she didn't ask for. The police took her passport for a few months and searched her house. After a few months, she got her passport returned to her, she left Japan temporarily, but when she came back, they arrested her "to ensure [she] wouldn't flee while they finished the investigation".
She also mentioned it was "the most normal type of thing you can thing of"; it might have been something like pseudoephrine/Sudafed. That's a common over-the-counter drug in other countries but it's very illegal here in Japan (unless it's under 10%, then you can buy it easily here)!
>Both cases were ultimately dropped and the second arrest was essentially tied to the first and shouldn’t have even been possible. But because of how the system works weather it’s a viable reason or not, they can still trap you in there for a time while the case is being reviewed. I met others who where there for shorter and much longer periods of time. The worst part was knowing i was innocent. After it’s all said and done you walk out and they act as if nothing happened. Not only was this was all extremely traumatizing but it cost me a HUGE of money that I really did not have and caused irreversible damage to my life.
The literal majority of people in US jails are there not because they have been convicted of anything but because they were given a bail amount they couldn’t afford to pay, which is a deliberate strategy by the courts when there is no justification to refuse bail. This can look like a $500 cash bail set on a homeless guy charged with resisting arrest (aka being arrested). Many of them are innocent and are trapped and have their lives ruined in exactly the way this guy describes. (We assume that many of them are innocent because when someone pays their bail, more than 50% of cases are simply dismissed as soon as they leave jail. The expectation is that they will just plead guilty because otherwise they are stuck in jail for months waiting for a trial).
https://bailproject.org/data/unlocking-the-truth/
I dont think so. I think innocent until proven guilty is the right way to go. Because all the police know is that he is accused of stabbing someone. Whether he actually did it or not, a court of law will decide that while he is present to be tried. Until then You cant punish someone like this over an accusation. You can deny bail if the person might be dangerous, but you cant punish them
This is bullshit and the japanese should be ashamed of having such a system while being considered a part of the civilized world. If this was china people would be rightfully losing their mind
I always assumed this kind of behaviour was cherry picked on social media. How “normal” is it actually?!
But is it OK to risk punishing a few innocent people if it greatly reduces the amount of suffering caused by crime?
Nah, it's a principle that was brought in from English common law. E.g Blackstone's Ratio[0] was published at roughly the same time as the American revolution was playing out, and cited plenty of earlier formulations of the same principle. Habeas Corpus was codified in the Magna Carta, but predated it as a concept.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...
In Japan you can be arrested while an investigation is in process, only afterwards you will be indicted. Additionally, Japan does not permit defendants to post bail prior to an indictment.
Yes Japan has a really high conviction rate, but that is because they indict only cases were a conviction is likely.
Arrests don't need to lead to the person being indicted.
If they confess, it counts as a win. If they don’t, you release them but it’s not a loss (as they were not charged).
By comparison, you might consider https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/14/fewer-tha... :
> In fiscal year 2022, only 290 of 71,954 defendants in federal criminal cases – about 0.4% – went to trial and were acquitted
So does the US.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/11/only-2-of...
I can't logically think of any other lawfully worse punishment than what was described in the article. I don't know what they'd do for breaking rules in these situations, to be honest.
It's an obvious deficit in civilization itself that we can't have, or even seem to come up with, a principled justice system. We just intermittently ban specific atrocities and hope that eventually adds up to justice.
Being laxist towards criminals is not just being cruel to the victims to me: to me it is downright complicity with the criminals.
BTW: Japan happens to be one of the safest country on earth. A friend who's a pilot told me: "Tokyo is the only city in the world where I've women from my team (mostly air hostesses but also female pilot or co-pilot) go for a run at 3am". Now he didn't fly to every city in the world but I can name a great many cities where a fit woman won't go joking in yoga pants at 3am. And so can he.
Japan is safe because of other factors, not their conviction rate.
> they swipe up every single criminal they can, plus a bunch of random people
And this is completely baseless.
There are many places women can run at 3am - Singapore, Bangkok, jut from top of my head.
And living in Tokyo, I woudn't advise any women to do jogging at 3am.
As a Mexican friend puts it for Mexico: Dress as the police should believe you.
The conviction rate was already terrifying, but this probably nails the coffin.
And this in a country where the yakuza is a sanctioned part of the society?
So say if someone shoves you on a subway in Tokyo, do not ever shove back or do anything worse. Move away, get witnesses / evidence if you can, then report. I've heard many from the US
Oh, and other things that can get you arrested:
- Not promptly returning someone's lost property such as a wallet. There was a case here in the newspapers recently.
- A review about a business that damaged their reputation, even if it was true (but you don't have 100% evidence). eg. "I got food poisoning from here". Be very careful what you post and say online as defamation laws are very different.
oh, and maybe not arrested, but get in trouble for: if you place your household rubbish into not your designated collection point, even though the point is the closest to your home. (Also don't get me started on the topic of sorting trash...)
Jail's job is to keep you around during your legal process. You're not supposed to enjoy jail but it's not supposed to be torture, either. Torture does not belong in a civilized society and especially should not be used against those who have not even been formally charged. much less convicted, of a crime.
Hard disagree. Prison is the one you're not supposed to enjoy, jail is the place you use to keep people BEFORE they are judged.
A jail should limit the people held only as much as needed for the safety of the public and the handlers, but no punishment should be inflicted because no one's a convicted criminal (yet).
And in any case, prison should have a strong component of making the guilty person fit to live among others. A person that's been made to sit still staring at the wall for all their waking life for years is a person I definitely don't want as a neighbour, because there's no way they come out of that sane.
Especially If you’re wrongfully arrested. “Optimizing society for law abiding people” means the opposite of what you think it means.
In this case, the author evidently _was_ a law abiding person, so the optimization failed, senselessly, likely out of a systemic effort to strike enough fear in the populace to over-index towards avoiding the possibility of this sort of situation. (Much like Singapore caning people for minor offenses.)
Whether or not you agree that such draconian punishments or processes are effective or fair is a different discussion, but this person was LITERALLY not supposed to be in jail, so how fair is it that they were removed from polite society for over a month in such poor conditions and at considerable expense?
For those somehow actually considering this: make sure to check local laws, might be super illegal or at least inadmissible, (im)morality nonwithstanding. Although just because it's illegal, inadmissible, or immoral, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it of course.
Also maybe don't use the Meta glasses for this, even if you do decide to go for it. Not so sous anymore if you do.
Fact check... anyone can confirm this treatment is standard in Japan?
I'm sorry that there are people, places and things that appeal to you get called fascistic, if that's the case, you should probably just evaluate why you're defending those things when millions of people see them as inherently bad.
Maybe you are apart of the problem and you don't want to acknowledge it. At least own it and don't try to gaslight the world into believing something isn't bad because you like the bad thing. .
Damn, I want to move to Japan now.
How often does this actually happen in reality versus it being trotted out as a backstory after being caught?
I personally spent about 10 minutes trying to enter a car one time thinking my key was broken. At that point I realized I don't own fuzzy dice and was indeed just at a different car with the exact same exterior
While it doesn't detract from the article's main point, that Japanese prison conditions are poor, but arson, murder, and jaywalking much? Overstaying your visa is a lot more egregious than the other infractions.
> Damn, I want to move to Japan now.
I know this is sarcasm, but going to Japan as a tourist and _living_ in Japan as a resident -- or the same of any country, for that matter -- are very different experiences. Some, but surprisingly little, of your experience from the former carries over to the latter.
Drugs? Petty crime? Homelessness? No other country comes close to managing these problems as well as Japan does, and Japan somehow manages to do this without descending into a 1984-esque surveillance state. Wander the streets of Tokyo at night and you will see zero drug-addicted homeless people. How many western cities could one say that about?
-The rampant sexual assaults -Child pornography still be prevelant -Tens of Millions overworked -Millions paid a wage that can't provide anything other than a slave life -The latter two leading to extreme levels of suicide -The fact the society as a whole isolates difference whether it be disability, or personality -OAPs needing to commit crime to live or committing crime to go to prison -There not being enough social care -The rampant racism against anyone else
Need I go on? If you think the above is wonderful something is seriously wrong. Japan has as many flaws as any where else and is the reason for many of them themselves.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journa...
Fucked up country I wish for the people to be free one day from their current fascist leaders.
Meanwhile the "non-fascist" country they live in: gun violence, drug addiction, low trust, racial segregation, non-peaceful society, theft, unaffordable housing, onlyfans and turning everything into an ideological battleground to benefit the few feuding over who should foot the military upkeep to distract its population.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
That's not the issue. At least in the US it is unconstitutional to bar inmates from speaking or communicating in non-English languages.
Likewise the US legal system is required to provide you an interpreter who can speak in a language you are proficient in.
Whether these rights are properly upheld in the US is another question but they are rights you are entitled to.
That's the main issue. These are rights that Americans are accustomed to and it's not always obvious to them when they leave the country that these rights aren't universal among developed countries.
This attitude is so unbelievably prevalent among native English speakers. "Obviously everyone should speak *my* language -- why should I ever have to learn another one?"
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html