National / Crime & Legal Dec 31, 2019
At present, no prisons or detention facilities have a shortage of capacity, and the occupancy rate stands at slightly below 60 percent of overall national capacity.
World Dec 31, 2019
Apprentice prison guards in West Virginia to be fired over Nazi salute
Thirty apprentice prison officers in the eastern United States will be fired for making a Nazi salute in a group photo, the state governor said Monday. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice condemned the photo "in the strongest possible terms" and in a statement said, "This ...
National | Regional voices: Chubu Dec 27, 2019
VR builds bridge between staff and young detainees with developmental disorders in Japan
One day in mid-November, instructors at the Miyagawa medical reformatory, which treats delinquent teenage boys with developmental disorders, in Ise, Mie Prefecture, experienced how people with the disabilities perceive the world by wearing virtual reality goggles and watching a video. "Oh, it's so bright I'm ...
World / Crime & Legal Dec 1, 2019
Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed Saturday to review Britain's sentencing system after a convicted terrorist released early from prison stabbed two people to death and wounded three in a London Bridge attack. Members of the public were hailed as heroes for preventing greater loss of ...
Asia Pacific Nov 15, 2019
Study casts doubt on China's claims to have ended forced organ harvesting from prisoners
China is engaged in the "systemic falsification" of voluntary organ donation data, an academic paper suggested Friday, calling into question Beijing's claim to have ended forced harvesting of organs from prisoners. In a study published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Medical Ethics, three academics examined ...
National Nov 14, 2019
Tokyo rally protests prolonged detention of foreign nationals at immigration facilities
A rally was held in Tokyo on Thursday calling for an end to the prolonged detention of foreign nationals at immigration facilities across the country, with a woman pleading for the immediate release of her detained husband, who is on a hunger strike. "My husband ...
National / Crime & Legal Oct 18, 2019
Japan to pardon 550,000 convicts on occasion of imperial enthronement ceremony
by Magdalena Osumi
The government on Friday approved granting pardons to roughly 550,000 petty criminals in light of Emperor Naruhito's enthronement ceremony next Tuesday. The Justice Ministry said the pardons, the first since 1993, will be granted on the premise that the emperor's enthronement is "an opportunity for ...
National Sep 9, 2019
Ex-convict-turned-writer Joji Abe, known for a bestselling humor-filled novel depicting the lives of inmates, died of pneumonia at his home in Tokyo on Monday, his family said. He was 82. A native of Tokyo, Abe joined a gangster group when he was in junior high ...
World Sep 7, 2019
In first sign of better ties, Russia and Ukraine begin long-awaited prisoner swap
Russia and Ukraine on Saturday began a long-awaited prisoner swap in a step that could ease bitter tensions over Moscow's annexation five years ago of the Crimea region. While the unfolding exchange could help build confidence between Moscow and Kyiv — formerly Kiev — and ...
World Jun 29, 2019
Jailed British-Iranian aid worker ends hunger strike in Iran
Jailed British-Iranian aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has ended a hunger strike in Tehran designed to push for her release, her husband told the BBC on Saturday. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, began the hunger strike roughly two weeks ago. She was arrested ...
World / Politics Jun 29, 2019
Florida governor signs law allowing felons to vote, but there's a price
Florida's Republican governor on Friday signed a bill to restore the voting rights for felons who have served their time, but he wants them to pay all fines and restitution before casting a ballot, a hurdle that immediately drew a lawsuit from civil rights ...
Issues | LAW OF THE LAND Jun 19, 2019
With changes in emperors come amnesties, so who will benefit?
by Colin P.A. Jones
One convenient thing about Japanese law for those of us who are professors of it is that it is quite modern. Virtually all Japanese laws and institutions antedate the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and, of those, most have a 20th-century provenance. Compared to Anglo-American ...