Suchergebnisse

This open access book provides a comparative perspective on capital punishment in Japan and the United States. Alongside the US, Japan is one of only a few developed democracies in the world that retains capital punishment and continue to carry out executions on a regular basis. There are some similarities between the two systems of capital punishment but there are also many striking differences which are explored within this study. These include differences in capital jurisprudence, execution method, the nature and extent of secrecy surrounding death penalty deliberations and executions, institutional capacities to prevent and discover wrongful convictions, orientations to lay participation and to victim participation, and orientations to "democracy" and governance. Johnson also examines and explores several fundamental issues about the ultimate criminal penalty, such as whether is death different from other criminal sanctions, what is the proper role of citizen preferences in governing a system of punishment and why do the feelings of victims and survivors matter?

This open access book provides a comparative perspective on capital punishment in Japan and the United States. Alongside the US, Japan is one of only a few developed democracies in the world which retains capital punishment and continues to carry out executions on a regular basis. There are some similarities between the two systems of capital punishment but there are also many striking differences. These include differences in capital jurisprudence, execution method, the nature and extent of secrecy surrounding death penalty deliberations and executions, institutional capacities to prevent and discover wrongful convictions, orientations to lay participation and to victim participation, and orientations to "democracy" and governance. Johnson also explores several fundamental issues about the ultimate criminal penalty, such as the proper role of citizen preferences in governing a system of punishment and the relevance of the feelings of victims and survivors.;

The authors review the prospects for abolition of the death penalty throughout Asia in a series of authoritative case studies and investigate the continuities and limits between European abolition and attendant human rights perspectives and the culture, government, and policy of Asian nations.

Contents -- Introduction -- Why Japanese Prosecutors? -- Research Methods -- An Overview of the Criminal Process -- An Overview of the Book -- I: The Contexts of Japanese Justice -- 1 Paradise for a Prosecutor -- Little Crime -- Light Caseloads -- Quiescent Politics -- Enabling Law -- No Juries -- Conclusion -- 2 Prosecutors and the Criminal Court Community -- Prosecutors and Police -- Prosecutors and Judges -- Prosecutors and Defense Attorneys -- Conclusion -- 3 Prosecutor Culture -- Who Are the Prosecutors? -- What Do Prosecutors Want?

Abstract
Japan is often said to have one of the lowest rape rates in the world, and Japanese police claim to solve 97 percent of rape cases. But in reality, only 5–10 percent of rape victims report it to police, and police record half or less of reported cases while prosecutors charge about one-third of recorded cases. The result of this process of caseload attrition is that for every 1,000 rapes in Japan, only 10–20 result in a criminal conviction – and fewer than half of convicted rapists are incarcerated. Similar patterns characterize Japan's criminal justice response to other sex crimes. This article shows that impunity for sex offenders is extremely common in Japan, and it argues that patriarchal social and legal norms help explain this pattern.

The secrecy that surrounds capital punishment in Japan is taken to extremes not seen in other nations. This article describes the Japanese state's policy of secrecy and explains how it emerged as the product of an historical imperative (the Meiji need to appear 'civilized' to western powers) and the self-interested actions of powerful elites in the Occupation and in the Ministry of Justice. Prosecutors in Japan offer several justifications for their secrecy policy, none of which is cogent. If transparency and accountability are hallmarks of a healthy democracy, then the secrecy that conceals this system of capital punishment is decidedly undemocratic. Secrecy also helps explain the low salience of capital punishment in Japan, and it illustrates a Japanese penchant for governance through 'bureaucratic informalism'. Central to this model of law is the elite's attempt to retain control over the processes of social conflict and change.

While the Carter administration is clearly paying more attention to civil defense and will undoubtedly request more funding for crisisrelocation planning, this does not yet constitute giving "major priority" to civil defense. Most policymakers seem to believe civil defense can play only a very limited role in mitigating the effects of nuclear weapons.Many of the questions related to the desirability or undesirability of more stress on civil defense are essentially unanswerable. We simply cannot know with assurance how it will affect U.S. security or the chances of nuclear war. Plausible points can be made on both sides, but it is mostly speculation. Nobody who feels strongly one way or the other is likely to have his views changed. The debate will be predictably inconclusive.