The Death Penalty in Japan

As you know, the issue of the death penalty is highly discussed worldwide. There are many countries that throughout their history had capital punishment as part of their judicial system. Little by little some countries have been leaving it behind, however there are some, as is the case of Japan, that still have this penalty and it is that many believe that today’s society in general the international community has already abolished capital punishment but the reality is There are more countries that are under a regime that includes capital punishment than those that do not, that is, capital punishment is rather the rule and not the exception at the international level.

This is a detail that is often overlooked, each country, each society has found different motivations or justifications to abolish it or to continue it. One of these justifications for abolishing this punishment is that it violates the human rights of the person, since he does not have a decision about his life, someone else decides about it, including the moment when he is going to be executed.

Specifically in Japan there are many people who are against it because it breaks with article 36 of the constitution since the person to be executed receives a violent death, although on the other hand there are people who are in favor of this because they argue that if they don’t thus the crime is going to be repeated without caring about the punishment.

It’s a bit complicated at the same time because the people who write and understand the laws here in Japan argue that a person loses his constitutional rights at the moment of committing the crimes for which he is tried, he does not have freedom of the movement. The moment you are prosecuted and taken to jail, you lose your constitutional right to freedom of movement.

There are many countries that have the death penalty in their laws although they do not apply it, that is, it is within the criminal code but they have not applied it for decades or in some cases centuries. There are countries that have totally abolished it and outside of their criminal code, outside of their constitution, and there are countries that have it and apply it, as is the case with Japan, that is, in Japan there is the death penalty .

There are a series of circumstances that have to be fulfilled : it can be from the repetition, the intention, the number of people, the way in which you ended the life of that or those people, the impact it had on family members or people close to that person. There is even a question that during the trial the criminal shows some kind of weakness or resentment. The judges observe many things to give the death sentence and that is another reason why in Japan they also do not accept this punishment since the judges are human and can make mistakes in their sentence, which has meant that many times, after after many years it is “discovered” that the person sentenced to death was innocent. If he had been sentenced to life imprisonment, there would still be the possibility of taking him to trial and setting him free, but not in capital punishment, there is no going back.

There are even several trials that remain open, there are several sentences that, although already completed as such, have not been carried out for more than even 50 years, that is, people are still prisoners but the death penalty has not been carried out. because there are some possibilities of error. In a very specific case of the three judges who sentenced the death penalty in part of the court, one of them later retracted. So by creating this doubt they no longer wanted to go ahead with the death penalty and this person has been imprisoned for 64 years, basically a life sentence has already been converted but there is too much room for error.

With this also comes the justification of those who support the death penalty, how long can you wait? . Human life is very fragile, we are talking about people who are guilty because there are times when the guilt is nothing more than obvious, how are you going to justify that person being able, for example, after 10 years of 20 years to go out on parole and mix with the community. We are talking about those cases of people who knowingly used torture to commit crimes to various people, with rape and even like the religious sect that used sarin gas in the Tokyo subway causing a painful death to many people. It is also where it is difficult to talk about justice because there is no way to return the damage done, that is, you cannot return the victims

Many countries still have capital punishment in their laws for political matters. There are countries that have very serious waves of violence where there is a lot of kidnapping or violent crime: how much would the population be for or against capital punishment in these countries?

There is also another issue that is a little lower down, more hidden, and that is the way in which capital punishment is carried out in Japan and that is hanging . Many rightly argue that it is a rather painful form of capital punishment since it is slow and, apart from everything, many times it is not even instantaneous, that is, there may even be fractures and many people say that it borders on what would be torture

The Japanese judicial system says that lack of remorse is a strong factor in capital punishment . Many of the supporters of the death penalty argue that it should not be a revenge but a protection for society. There is, for example, the story of a person who was a security guard in these exclusive prisons for those sentenced to death. Before, those sentenced to death could even continue going out to play sports in the prison yard, they could spend a little time with other prisoners, etc. In more recent years they have been totally isolated, they cannot have contact with other prisoners. Something that is criticized a lot in Japan is that they are notified the same day of the execution , that is, you have already received your sentence and 20 years can pass and nobody tells you anything and one day in the morning they arrive and tell you that today is the day of your execution. Many are against giving notice a few moments before as it makes it difficult for them to say goodbye to their family or even does not allow the person to become more psyched and turns out to be torture for them.

Currently there is a complaint by prisoners on death row against the government for this system of announcing on the same day, perhaps letting yourself be carried away by emotion, but if it were your children who were victims of murder and torture by one of these People would say to them “you didn’t give them a week or a month’s notice, you didn’t give them a chance to say goodbye to anyone, you didn’t give them a chance to see their family for the last time, so why should it be given to you?” However, at the same time, putting emotions aside, coldly you would no longer be seeking justice but revenge, so it is more like thinking “how can I make sure that the people who are still alive do not run the risk that others did, how find that balance and that is why many people prefer or let’s say support life imprisonment, rather limited to these criminals by putting them in a special prison, isolated without harming other people.

We know that this is a very complicated issue and it is very difficult to talk about it in a totally objective way. There are very conflicting positions that is why it is still controversial. We invite you again to leave your comments so that we can all learn and probably discover other people’s points of view or experiences that we would never have imagined.