Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Getting arrested in Japan

sundaicity.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 359 posts

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#141

Post by pessimizer »

wisty wrote: post #33
actionfromafar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arrested not convicted.

In the US, it's seen as a God-given truth that no innocent person should ever be punished. Partly because it was founded (in part) by oppressed minorities fleeing states where the were constantly harassed by authorities. (Irony - the US's approach hardly fixed the issue). But is it OK to risk punishing a few innocent people if it greatly reduces the amount of suffering caused by crime?

> In the US, it's seen as a God-given truth that no innocent person should ever be punished.

In the US, just as in Japan, as soon as you are arrested they begin punishing you. If there were a real assumption of innocence, jail would be pleasant and comfortable, and if you were WFH you wouldn't miss a day. There is a material presumption of guilt, even if there's some sort of ethereal theoretical presumption of innocence.

Instead, you're in a horrible cell, eating horrible food, dressed in a humiliating way, treated in a humiliating way, and exposed to dangerous people. Unless you can pay a bond which you will never get back (because you are too poor to pay bail.) You haven't been convicted of anything. The fine you're facing might be lower than your bond, and the time you're facing might be shorter than the time you'd have to wait in jail to go to court.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#142

Post by Aeolun »

ninjin wrote: post #125
Aurornis wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> somebody else sent her a package with something illegal in it that she didn't ask for. > She also mentioned it was "the most normal type of thing you can think of"; This doesn't really answer the question, though. It's frustrating to try to interpret these stories with a lot of writing and video describing everything except the crucial detail about what the charges were for. I don't think she's trying to withhold i…

> It's frustrating to try to interpret these stories with a lot of writing and video describing everything except the crucial detail about what the charges were for. Is it really a crucial detail though? As someone having lived in Japan for a long time, I see no reason why we can not discuss the fact that civil rights and detention treatment in Japan are lacking without resorting to "Do they deserve it in light of wh…

It is? Because the whole ‘is it awful’ thing hinges pretty strongly on how many options you were given to avoid it before going there.

If I had the police over, was an ass, had them come back, was an ass again. Then at some point they’re going to just think I’m the person that’d run away while they conduct their investigation.

I’m sure bad policemen exist in Japan, but all the ones I’ve met have been very friendly and reasonable.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#143

Post by hackyhacky »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #126
aftbit wrote: post #116

Absolutely horrifying. I've come to believe that criminal punishment is simply unethical. I wish someone would come up with a better option.

And what do you have to say to teenage girls or even little kid girls getting raped? 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 o…

Safety is easy to achieve if you don't care about justice.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#144

Post by hackyhacky »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #63
infotainment wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this -- westerners love to criticize Japan's justice system, while ignoring the fact that much of it actually works . 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.…

The virtues you mention are not a consequence of the tortuous treatment described in the post though. Conditions could rise to Western humane standards and the underlying Japanese culture that allows for such peaceful living would still remain.

You can't take the Japanese criminal justice system out of Japan. It's part of a larger whole.

The Western mentality, especially in the USA, focuses on independent will. The government is not supposed to stop people from making choices that are bad for society or bad for themselves. In Japan, the mentality is that every person has an obligation to work with society and to fit in at all costs. The Japanese criminal justice system exemplifies that spirit, but it touches all areas, such as employment, personal relationships, behavior in public, talking to strangers, etc.

In short, if you want to have the advantages of Japan, you need to take it with the disadvantages as well.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#145

Post by tristanj »

kulahan wrote: post #135
TacticalCoder wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what do you have to say to teenage girls or even little kid girls getting raped? 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 o…

Japan's judicial system has something like a 99% conviction rate. It's "safe" because they swipe up every single criminal they can, plus a bunch of random people in the process. So everyone is naturally going to be on their best behavior.

The claim that Japan is "safe" because it has a high conviction rate is a junk meme. The United States federal conviction rate is essentially identical to the Japanese judicial conviction rate when measured by the same methodology. It's roughly 99.6-99.8% depending on the year.

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.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#146

Post by bsimpson »

metacritic12 wrote: post #14

Seems like it's not pleasant, and the author says in theory it could be as low of a bar as getting into a heated argument; but the author never discloses his actual charge, which I think is critical context. 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…

It surprises me how many people are responding to an article that includes:

> You can not bring or keep anything including a bra or even your own underwear.

presuming the author is male.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#147

Post by hackyhacky »

applfanboysbgon wrote: post #27

[flagged]

> Language barrier: Forced to communicate only in Japanese

To be clear, what the author said is that communicating in any language besides Japanese is prohibited with anyone. So if you share a cell with an inmate who speaks your native language, you're not allowed to speak with them in that language. I think that expected to be allowed to speak with inmates is not a sign of arrogance, and I don't know any other country that has a similar restriction.

Another issue is whether the author is allowed to communicate about her case in her native language. If she's asked to sign forms, make statements, or expected to understand her legal procedure, one would expect that the police would provide a translator to ensure that she's treated fairly. Certainly, that would be the norm in the West.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#148

Post by cjbgkagh »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #140
cjbgkagh wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skid row isn’t abandonment, CA spends $47K per homeless person per year in direct and indirect assistance. It exists as it does due to intentional and well funded policy.

Even granting that (which... no. How is it true? Any evidence?) it's still less inhumane than what Japan is doing here. The conditions amount to torture. The fact that many people opt to falsely plead guilty and get a reduced punishment in a society that highly values honor and saving face should say a lot about it.

Californian spend on homelessness is public info, you’re free to search it yourself.

There is something about seeing drug addicted zombies impossibly contorted in on themselves and swaying in the wind that appears very inhuman to me. If given the choice, pre zombification, of a false confession or life as a zombie I know which I would chose.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#149

Post by bouncycastle »

gyf304 wrote: post #139
bouncycastle wrote: post #134

another thing in Japan is that you can get arrested for self defence. Say if someone starts attacking you on the street, and eg. you punch back causing an injury, when you could have simply ran away and escaped, then you can get arrested and held for 23 days as a suspect. 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, the…

That’s a thing as well in some US states called duty to retreat.

Similar, but not the same. Japan is more strict. There is also no Castle Doctrine, so you have to retreat even if you are in your home.

Re: Getting arrested in Japan

#150

Post by bitwize »

metacritic12 wrote: post #14

Seems like it's not pleasant, and the author says in theory it could be as low of a bar as getting into a heated argument; but the author never discloses his actual charge, which I think is critical context. 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…

Jack Henry Abbott was an American prisoner who corresponded with the author Norman Mailer, who successfully got a collection of his letters published as In the Belly of the Beast, which contain scathing critiques of the American justice and prison systems based on his own experiences therewith.

Mailer also successfully advocated for Abbott's parole. Six weeks later, Abbott stabbed to death the manager of a restaurant he was eating at after an argument.

Post reply on HN