A vast majority of the public thinks more autopsies are necessary to determine if a death was due to foul play, according to a Cabinet Office crime survey released Thursday.
"I was actually surprised by the high percentage," said professor Hirotaro Iwase of Chiba University's Forensic Medicine Department, who is in charge of conducting autopsies in the prefecture. "This shows people think there is something wrong with the situation concerning autopsies in Japan."
In a survey on preventing crime-related deaths from being overlooked, 85.3 percent of 1,913 respondents said they feel more autopsies need to be done to detect crimes. About 96.7 percent of respondents said they want to know how a family member died.