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Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

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Re: Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

#41

Post by carapace »

tidenly wrote: post #28
CaptainZapp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I know that they're free. I was just wondering why such an ubiquitous thing like a usually very cheap umbrella needs to be locked away in the first place. In Japan from all places. Of course, and if it's only a standard bucket, there's a very good chance that you walk away with the wrong umbrella. But are people really that attached to their specific personal umbrella, which is exactly the same as yours, that th…

The Japanese release all the energy saved up not committing other petty crimes by being notorious umbrella thieves. Tokyo is the umbrella crime theft capital of the world. The lockers prevent the "Oh I thought it was mine", excuse, and also places popular with foreigners, who more commonly have actual umbrellas instead of the cheap plastic ones, are more likely to have the lockers I've found.

> Tokyo is the umbrella crime theft capital of the world.

I'd watch that anime.

Re: Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

#42

Post by lazyasciiart »

unishark wrote: post #38
keerthiko wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just as terrible a generalization to use polls that don't consider a great many of the people harassed and oppressed by police forces (immigrants, PoC, incarcerated, poor neighborhoods, homeless people). Yes, people feel both ways about cops, and that lack of uniformly friendly relationship across the populace is the whole point brought up by GP. To their exact sentiment > The general view of police and governme…

On the contrary a poll is about the best possible way to make generalizations. It uses random sampling to make estimates about a population. Otherwise the loudest get all the attention, certainly a big issue when it comes to cops lately. I guess polls might miss homeless people, though there aren't enough to swing the numbers noticeably. I don't see why they'd hate cops especially. I wonder how incarcerated people in…

Homeless people would be more likely to have a negative view of cops because cops arrest them for loitering/sleeping in public/being a nuisance?

And polls might not include incarcerated people, yea. That will make a bigger difference in the US stats (0.65% of the population incarcerated, vs Japans 0.05%).

Re: Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

#43

Post by iCarrot »

tidenly wrote: post #12
thunderbong wrote: post #5

I've never been to Japan, but whenever I read these articles, I am reminded of the Japanese word 'Kaizen' which means to continuously improve your work. The way I understand it is to step outside of yourself while working and to see your output as to how it will be perceived over time and from an outsider's point of view and ask from that person's point of view what could be done better. I might be wrong, but to me,…

This might come off as somewhat pessimistic but I actually think Japan is one of the worst implementers of Kaizen anywhere. Japanese are famously conservative in how they work, with employees largely avoiding taking on any responsibility and spreading out tasks and checks. The end result being no-one really stands out, but also that no-one is ever really singularly "at fault" as every decision and check is daisy-chai…

I'm under the impression that the "kaizen" philosophy is often about the product of one's work rather than the process.

Off the top of my head, there are two examples: the Fujifilm digital cameras (where you may have a totally different camera than the one you bought, thanks to firmware updates bringing in new features) and the Shimano bicycle parts (where improvements continuously come to top-shelf product lines, then trickle down to cheaper lines).

Re: Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

#44

Post by jbay808 »

drak0n1c wrote: post #27
WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 wrote: post #6

As someone who lives in Japan I believe this is not a result of "Japanese people being more honest", but rather: - Availability. There are police stations (kobans) and officers on the street everywhere, just a few steps away from wherever I may find something. Turning in a lost item has no friction. All it takes is a few extra steps. In the U.S. there is huge friction - I would need to go out of my way to go to a pol…

Japan has a 99% conviction rate and indefinite uncharged detention happens often. Despite that people treat police amicably, and there is a trusting relationship. That's to me a sign that there is a fundamental cultural difference in Japanese attitude, in the US stats aren't anywhere as close to as severe, yet relations/trust is much worse. Goes to show how much of a productivity and effectiveness loss lack of trust…

The high conviction rate seems to be because cases are dropped unless the prosecution's confidence is very high, rather than letting it go to trial.

https://youtu.be/OINAk2xl8Bc

Re: Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

#45

Post by rawoke083600 »

I live in South Africa, we have the exact opposite ! Count your blessings

-Here nothing gets returned but they will go out of your way to kill you for your cellphone.

-One of our past police-ministers had done away with specialised units (like child abusers etc)

-He (Police minster) was also found not guilty of committing fraud, yet the party involved was committed of fraud. "Shabir Shaik" (go figure usually it takes two...)

-Police routinely loose or just outright sell their own weapons.

-Police will also sell weapons that are being turned it (The S.A government really wants to disarm all the law abiding citizens)

-Police are routinely arrested for being part of the crime problem. From murders to drug trafficking -Very few ppl trust the police here.

Count your blessings !

Re: Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

#46

Post by skrebbel »

drak0n1c wrote: post #27
WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 wrote: post #6

As someone who lives in Japan I believe this is not a result of "Japanese people being more honest", but rather: - Availability. There are police stations (kobans) and officers on the street everywhere, just a few steps away from wherever I may find something. Turning in a lost item has no friction. All it takes is a few extra steps. In the U.S. there is huge friction - I would need to go out of my way to go to a pol…

Japan has a 99% conviction rate and indefinite uncharged detention happens often. Despite that people treat police amicably, and there is a trusting relationship. That's to me a sign that there is a fundamental cultural difference in Japanese attitude, in the US stats aren't anywhere as close to as severe, yet relations/trust is much worse. Goes to show how much of a productivity and effectiveness loss lack of trust…

I think it also helps that most cops outside the US don't err on the side of shooting people dead. Which is a direct result of proper gun control, Japanese cops aren't continuously walking around in fear of their lives.

FWIW, in plenty European countries, police officers are also treated amicably (and asked for directions, etc, much like in Japan) but there's also no 99% conviction rate. I think Japanese cops are treated with trust despite the scary conviction rate, not because of it.

If I were a cop in the US, I'd also be an aggressive dick. I'd rather rough innocent people up a bit too often than get shot because I was too easy going. It must be one of the scariest jobs in the world.

Re: Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

#47

Post by tasogare »

stonekyx wrote: post #21
WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 wrote: post #6

As someone who lives in Japan I believe this is not a result of "Japanese people being more honest", but rather: - Availability. There are police stations (kobans) and officers on the street everywhere, just a few steps away from wherever I may find something. Turning in a lost item has no friction. All it takes is a few extra steps. In the U.S. there is huge friction - I would need to go out of my way to go to a pol…

The Japanese police are not always the friendly helper though, especially when something not in their daily routine happens. They're insanely rigid, almost always put arrested people in detention for maximum of 23 days even if they know the people are innocent, and they have a 99% conviction rate. After living here for a couple of years, I feel that this is also closely linked to the highly homogeneous culture, where…

> They're insanely rigid

Like any other organizations and most Japanese. Anything out of the book is "impossible", the subset of rules that must be followed are strictly enforced and anything unplanned needs 12 people "hummm-ing" for hours to take an obvious common sense decision.

Re: Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

#48

Post by hef19898 »

jbay808 wrote: post #44
drak0n1c wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan has a 99% conviction rate and indefinite uncharged detention happens often. Despite that people treat police amicably, and there is a trusting relationship. That's to me a sign that there is a fundamental cultural difference in Japanese attitude, in the US stats aren't anywhere as close to as severe, yet relations/trust is much worse. Goes to show how much of a productivity and effectiveness loss lack of trust…

The high conviction rate seems to be because cases are dropped unless the prosecution's confidence is very high, rather than letting it go to trial. https://youtu.be/OINAk2xl8Bc

That's a system in which the prosecution doesn't go yo court without enough evidence. Which is a good thing, IMHO. Might also mean that some reasonable cases aren't taken to court for lack of confidence on the prosecution s side. Still, largely preferable to the opposite.

The system not pushing everything tends to benefit the powerful. The other system em also tends to hurt the weak. One evil is still better than two, if you ask me.

Re: Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

#49

Post by hef19898 »

epicgiga wrote: post #34
drak0n1c wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan has a 99% conviction rate and indefinite uncharged detention happens often. Despite that people treat police amicably, and there is a trusting relationship. That's to me a sign that there is a fundamental cultural difference in Japanese attitude, in the US stats aren't anywhere as close to as severe, yet relations/trust is much worse. Goes to show how much of a productivity and effectiveness loss lack of trust…

Factoring in plea bargaining the US and Japan have roughly the same conviction rate. Factoring in people held in US because they can't make bail, also diminished some of the "held without trial" margin. But this is fundamentally a bigger problem in Japan, as it has now embarrassed the country on the world stage due to the Ghosn case. A state that holds people just becauss it doesn't like them, rather than due to evid…

Sure? I mean evidently Ghosn was a high flight risk. And whether or not his conduct was illegal or not is still not decided. For once a powerful person was close to be held for trial over stuff that was sketchy enough to be prosecuted. In a democracy. And still some people are complaining about it. Compare the Ghosn case to other scandals, like the VW emissions scandal. In the VW case it was only lower ranking managers who got charged and convicted. While the higher ups are still free and German investigators, while doing their job from what I can tell, still managed to keep VWs godfather, Ferdinand Piech, out of the story.

Re: Japan’s Lost-and-Found System

#50

Post by coldtea »

drak0n1c wrote: post #27
WnZ39p0Dgydaz1 wrote: post #6

As someone who lives in Japan I believe this is not a result of "Japanese people being more honest", but rather: - Availability. There are police stations (kobans) and officers on the street everywhere, just a few steps away from wherever I may find something. Turning in a lost item has no friction. All it takes is a few extra steps. In the U.S. there is huge friction - I would need to go out of my way to go to a pol…

Japan has a 99% conviction rate and indefinite uncharged detention happens often. Despite that people treat police amicably, and there is a trusting relationship. That's to me a sign that there is a fundamental cultural difference in Japanese attitude, in the US stats aren't anywhere as close to as severe, yet relations/trust is much worse. Goes to show how much of a productivity and effectiveness loss lack of trust…

>in the US stats aren't anywhere as close to as severe

Well, the US has the largest incarceration rate in the world (24% of the world's prison population for 5% of the world's population), the death penalty, and even death penalty for teenagers, plus horrible prison conditions, private prisons that are profit centers, widespread acceptance that prisoners must be "punished" (as opposed to reformed, etc), the medieval three strikes law, bail law. Plus cops routinely shooting people, and even SWAT-ization of police forces.

So I'd say it's justified that the "relations/trust" is much worse.

The Japanese conviction rate or detection could affect a much smaller amount of their population -- and it could be even because prosecutors only move on when they are close to 100% sure about a case.

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