I Just Didn’t Do It
Japan’s criminal justice system is getting some attention these days. A new film called “I Just Didn’t Do It” has been released here. I mentioned in a recent post that the conviction rate here is 99%. It turns out I was a bit low with that number: (economist.com article – subscription required)
Now a new film about wrongful arrest by one of Japan’s most respected directors, Masayuki Suo, has just opened to critical acclaim. The movie, entitled “I Just Didn’t Do It”, is based on a true story about a young man who was accused of molesting a schoolgirl on a crowded train—and refused adamantly to sign a confession. Thanks to support from friends and family, the real-life victim finally won a retrial after two years of protesting his innocence, and is today a free man.
The film, which was premièred in America and Britain before opening in Japan, depicts how suspects, whether guilty or innocent, are brutalised by the Japanese police, and how the judges side with the prosecutors. Mr Suo argues that suspects are presumed guilty until proven innocent, and that the odds are stacked massively against them being so proven.
The statistics would seem to bear him out. Japan is unique among democratic countries in that confessions are obtained from 95% of all people arrested, and that its courts convict 99.9% of all the suspects brought before them. Prosecutors are ashamed of being involved in an acquittal and fear that losing a case will destroy their careers. Judges get promotion for the speed with which they process their case-loads. And juries do not exist…
If you want a sense of what it’s like to go through an arrest in Japan, Stippy.com has a three part story by an American who was arrested in Japan and kept a detailed journal of his multi-week lock-up and rounds of interrogation for an offense that would probably not have involved him being locked up at all in the US. Part 3, which I linked to, is the most interesting so I recommend starting there.
If you were to pick a person at random in Japan and compare his life to a random person in the US, the Japanese person has much better odds of having decent housing, decent medical care, and a decent education. It’s interesting that you’d be much more likely to get a fair shake from the US justice system though, even with the many problems the US has in this area.
