Japanese Criminal Justice System

JAPAN AND THE JAPANESE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

This research examines the practice of criminal justice in Japan. The findings of this examination are presented in three major discussions�Japanese society and culture, crime in Japan, and the Japanese criminal justice system.

Background information on Japanese society and culture is provided as a basis for understanding the functions of criminal justice in the country. Information is presented within the contexts of (1) population and religion, (2) the political system, and (3) culture and social controls.

Japan is an Asian island nation whose 122 million inhabitants occupy four major islands and a number of smaller islands (Hunter 804). As a political entity, the country dates back to about 500 B.C.

The Japanese population is remarkably homogeneous in an ethnic context (Hunter 806). Ethnic Japanese account for 99.5 percent of the country's citizens, while most of the remaining one-half of one-percent are ethnic Koreans. Approximately 885,000 foreigners reside in Japan, while approximately 498,000 Japanese citizens reside outside of the country. Adjusting for these residence patterns still leaves the resident population of Japan 98.4 percent ethnically Japanese.

Japan, in the last-quarter of the twentieth century, is "the most thoroughly unified and culturally homogeneous large bloc of people in the a world, with the possible exception of the No

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f the taxes that would be paid by the Yakuza, if they reported their income. In one sense, a claim may be made that the Japanese economy is prevented from growing as much as it otherwise might because of the additional taxation required by legitimate businesses and individual taxpayers. Such a claim may not be supportable in a broader context, however, because the failure of the Yakuza to pay taxes permits growth in the underground sector of the Japanese economy to continue. The claim that can be supported, however, is that the failure of the Yakuza to pay taxes on its income derived from illegal sources retards growth in the legitimate sector of the Japanese economy. A new law designed to control the activities of the Yakuza became effective in Japan on 1 March 1992 (Ormonde 48). Some doubt was been expressed about how effective this law will be in moderating the activities of the Yakuza, because it was contended that the Japanese people, by and large, continued to hold generally favorable impressions of the Yakuza. Conversely, others observers thought that the effect of the new law might be to drive the Yakuza from its traditional open operating practices to underground activities. In this latter instance, it was contende

Category: Foreign - J