Eight inmates share a cell designed for six in Fuchu Prison in western Tokyo, following a recent explosion in the ranks of the incarcerated.

Some of the inmates sleep on futon, while others sleep on raised beds above them.

"Prisoners who are punished for fighting and quarreling are also increasing due to the pent-up stress (from the overcrowding)," said senior prison official Kazuharu Yoneya.

The nation's prison population has been rising for the last decade, exceeding capacity in 2000, according to Justice Ministry statistics, and correctional authorities have been urged to expand the capacity of cells.

Critics are meanwhile calling for a review of the nation's anticrime policy, recommending nonprison rehabilitation regimens for nonviolent offenders.

At Fuchu Prison, the nation's largest penitentiary, the inmate population has increased by about 700 during the past two years, Yoneya said. The prison currently houses about 3,000 inmates -- 400 over capacity.

Yoneya said, however, that 85 percent of capacity is optimum for a prison to run efficiently, because there would be spare cells available for problem inmates to be placed in solitary confinement or for troubled prisoners to be isolated for their own protection.

The influx of prisoners also pushes up the workload for prison staff, including those handling inmate admission procedures or screening convicts' correspondence.

Fuchu has been an exception to the norm in that its workforce has grown, albeit slightly, Yoneya said. Nationwide, employee ranks at correctional facilities have been contracting, according to the ministry.

The National Police Agency has demanded that the government provide funding for an increase of 10,000 police officers over the next three years in a bid to crack down on crime. Prison overcrowding is thus expected to worsen in the coming years.

The Justice Ministry Correctional Bureau recently predicted that the nation's prison and detention house population will top 80,000 by mid-2005, up nearly 25 percent from the end of 2000.

The bureau plans to seek a budgetary boost to expand the capacity of prisons and detention houses by 10,000 from the current 69,000 starting in fiscal 2003, ministry officials said.

In its latest annual white paper, issued last year, the ministry noted that crimes and criminals were both on the rise.

The number of crimes handled by police, excluding traffic-related offenses, marked a record high 2.44 million cases in 2000, up 12.8 percent from the previous year, according to the report. But the arrest rate in 2000 came to only 23.6 percent, down 10.2 percentage points from 1999.

The statistics, coming in tandem with media reports mainly focusing on sensational crimes and an increase in offenses committed by foreigners, have fueled public anxiety.

But some experts noted that the statistics do not necessarily mean public safety has deteriorated to the extent reported.

Behind the reported rapid rise in crime statistics, some experts claim, is a recent tendency by police, in the face of public criticism over their reluctance to act on reports from citizens, to formally handle cases that they used to solve unofficially or merely ignored.

This reluctance was exemplified by the Saitama Prefectural Police, who failed to respond to repeated complaints by a female collage student in Okegawa who was being stalked by a former boyfriend. He and his acquaintances even posted slanderous messages about her in her neighborhood. The coed was killed in October 1999, and her ex-boyfriend, who died in an apparent suicide, and his cohorts were accused of the crime.

Police ordered to act

The following year, the National Public Safety Commission issued police reform initiatives advocating a quick and appropriate reaction to complaints and reports from citizens.

Authorities have also apparently cracked down harder on penal code violators, incarcerating more convicts for longer periods.

People convicted of stimulant abuse, for example, in recent years have been increasingly handed prison terms of more than two years -- from 30.2 percent in 1995 to 40.9 percent in 2000.

Stimulant law violators accounted for 25.7 percent of all male convicts and 47.4 percent of all female convicts imprisoned in 2000.

The public of late has taken a hard line toward criminals, as reflected in recent legal revisions that provide heavier penalties for juveniles convicted of violent crimes and for drunken drivers.

Such public sentiment has apparently led authorities to become more rigid in granting parole.

No inmate who had served 20 years or less of an indefinite prison term was granted parole in 2000, compared with 27 who were released in 1991, including 13 who were paroled after serving 16 years or less.

It was recently learned that the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office sent a letter to prosecutors nationwide in 1998, calling on them to strongly urge regional corrections committees reviewing parole applications to ensure that certain convicts with indefinite terms serve "fairly long sentences."

The committee members -- mostly former senior correctional institution officials -- are appointed by the justice minister.

The letter notes that "public concern seems to be growing" over the fact that some convicts with indefinite terms are paroled before serving 20 years, which is the maximum length of a fixed term.

Koichi Hamai, a senior official at Yokohama Prison, said he feels that society's desire for offenders to receive tougher penalties is linked to the public sentiment inspired by the media, which report on crime-related statistics without providing careful analysis.

More violent in nature?

Security authorities often point out that crimes in Japan have turned increasingly heinous in recent years.

The latest available data indicate police handled more robbery and bodily assault cases in 2000.

But Hamai said the drastic increase in overall crime statistics reflects a recent move by police to deal with more cases reported to them, in line with the 2000 reform initiatives. Police now handle minor offenses that they used to ignore, he said.

But vicious crimes such as murder are not, according to the data, increasing drastically in number, Hamai said, noting that such offenses receive the most police attention.

The prison official said public impressions probably differ considerably from the reality of prison.

"Most inmates are people who have difficulty living independently without sufficient social support due to some kind of shortcoming," said Hamai, who is also a criminologist.

A ministry official who predicted a surge in the nation's inmate population said the ministry expects many of the prisoners to be victims of the unemployment situation who have resorted to crime to survive, especially elderly people and unskilled foreign laborers.

A Fuchu Prison survey found inmates aged over 60 accounted for 14.3 percent of the total as of the end of 1999, up 5.7 percent from 1989. More than 80 percent of them suffered some kind of illness or disability, according to the institution.

Hamai, who questions the effectiveness of imposing tougher penalties on offenders, said limited government funds may be better spent on improving welfare and education programs for inmates and the socially weak.

Shinichi Ishizuka, a professor of law at Ryukoku University in Kyoto, said it is time for Japan to debate its anticrime policy for the future.

Measures should be encouraged to treat people convicted of nonviolent crimes, such as drug abusers, out of prison so they will eventually be able to return to society without repeating their offenses.

"We must choose either a big judiciary system with many detention facilities and stricter punishments or a judiciary with more welfare programs to effectively help convicts return to society."