AMONG THE
ACTIVISTS
Michael H. Fox examines
Japan's death penalty.
Each
year, dozens of nonprofit organizations publish
reports describing the rights and freedoms of citizens
around the globe. Their statistics are used to
evaluate each country individually and vis-a-vis each
other. The results are often criticized as
non-scientific, subjective or political. But there is
one universal standard to measure the sanctity of
human rights in any country: the absence of a death
penalty. Capital punishment, according to many
critics, is what separates the primitive nations from
the civilized.
In
modern industrialized societies, the death penalty has
several functions. It gains votes for right-wing
politicians who run on law-and-order platforms. It
satisfies the sensibilities of religious fundamentalists by
proving that divine retribution is being served. It fosters
nationalism and group solidarity when a spy or terrorist is
executed. But there is one thing that the death penalty
does not do: prevent crime. No study, east or west, has
ever shown that criminals are deterred by the fear of
execution.
For this reason, as well as a strong belief that human life
is sacred, the death penalty has been eradicated in many
countries. Western Europe has been at the forefront of this
movement, abolition of capital punishment is a requisite
for membership in the European Union. At the other extreme
are states like China, Iran and the U.S., the latter a
country where more juvenile offenders sit on death row than
in any other country in the world.
Japan's
Stance
In this regard, Japan is a contradiction in terms. Japan
has a death penalty, but uses it sparingly, executing
"only" two or three prisoners a year. One would expect that
in light of the movement for universal abolishment, Japan
would don a diplomatic posture and join the crowd. But it
hesitates because the death penalty has two important
psychological functions in Japanese society.
Living in overcrowded metropolises and working in
hierarchical and emotionally stifling companies is a cause
of stress and psychological pressure. Urban office workers
toil away for hours with meager rest, few vacations and
little in the way of gratitude from superiors.
So what role does the death penalty play in this schemata?
It fulfills the societal needs for a form of retribution.
By reinforcing the notion that bad things happen to bad
people, it also intimates that good things will happen to
good people. Bizarre as it may seem, many Japanese
psychologists agree that the death penalty provides a
psychic release from the pressure and degradation of
conformity, repression and overwork.
But capital punishment in Japan has a more concrete
purpose: it is an effective tool for instilling fear during
police interrogations. The criminally accused have few
rights in this country and police are free to verbally
abuse suspects from morning to evening for days on end. The
ultimate aim of such tactics is to extract confessions. The
death penalty is the ultimate trump card in this game.
Because, no matter how strongly one resists and proclaims
innocence, when faced with the choice of "sing or swing,"
the suspect will usually capitulate and sign a confession.
Capital punishment, or rather the fear of it, is a powerful
and useful weapon in the hands of the authorities.
Carrying out the Sentence
The procedure for execution in Japan is opaque and carried
out in secrect. Executions are performed not at prisons,
but at detention centers. Those on death row are never sent
to prison, but remain in the detention center until an
appeal is won or their execution is carried out. The only
method used is hanging, a procedure which has been
abandoned in many places because it can result in
beheading. The hangings are conducted on Friday mornings,
and convicts are not given advance notification. Surviving
any Friday past nine a.m. guarantees another week of life.
The names of the executed are never announced publicly, and
the act of execution may not be acknowledged until well
after the event. Even family and attorneys are not informed
of the deaths firsthand - they learn of the executions when
the detention center requests the removal of a prisoner's
possessions or ashes.
Historically, executions have been carried out while the
Diet is in recess, a tactic to avoid political criticism.
Last year, two inmates, one in Nagoya and one in Tokyo,
were hung on December 27. The day was politically well
chosen. Not only was the Diet out; but two other trials
overshadowed the executions. Prosecutors in Utsunomiya,
Tochigi requested death for Shinozawa Kazuo, accused of
killing six women in a jewelry store heist last June, and
Takuma Mamoru, the perpetrator of the Ikeda elementary
school murders entered a guilty plea in Osaka and requested
execution.
The Activist
Movement
Japan has a vocal and growing abolitionist movement.
Osaka's activities are propelled by a group calling itself
Katatsumuri-kai (The Snail Association). They publish a
thick newsletter "Shikei to Jinken" (The Death Penalty and
Human Rights), hold symposiums and demonstrate at the Osaka
Detention Center.
Demonstrations are usually held on Thursday nights to
counter the possibility of a Friday morning execution. The
group meets at Miyakojima Station on the Tanimachi subway
line and passes out leaflets for about 30 minutes. After
leafleting, lanterns are lit and then the group walks to
the detention center chanting slogans against capital
punishment:
"Shi no
yojin! Shikei no yojin!"
(Beware of death! Beware of executions!)
This is a variation on the cry of the chant
"Hi no
yojin!"
(Beware of fire!) typically chanted by neighborhood groups
during the New Year's period.
"Jishin,
kaminari, kaji, shikei."
(Earthquakes, thunder, fire and execution.)
This version of the traditional four fears of schoolboys
with "execution" substituted for "father."
In front of the gate of the detention center, the leader of
the protest group hoists up his megaphone and shouts,
"Detention Center Chief Nemoto Takeshi, we urge you to
disregard any orders from the Ministry of Justice to
conduct executions on this premises." This plea is followed
by further chants.
Since it is summer, the sound carries quite a way. We are a
few centimeters outside the legal perimeter of the center.
Two guards approach ominously. We demonstrators are ordered
to back up, and a chain is hoister to keep us away.. One
participant mentions that being arrested, even for such a
small and peaceful demonstration would not be odd, since a
prior permit had not been obtained.
Pros and
cons
Some proponents of the death penalty seek its continuance
for economic reasons. They claim that to feed and clothe
inmates serving life sentences is a waste of taxpayers'
money. According to American statistics (no Japanese
statistics are available), it costs about $24,000 a year to
house each inmate. But the state does not save that amount
in the event of execution, as this includes the total costs
of prison employee salaries, building amortization,
administration and maintenance fees divided by the entire
prison population. Quite to the contrary, statistics show
that it costs $2,400,000 per execution. In most states,
death row convicts are given unlimited economic resourced
to contest their sentence. Each case costs $800,000, and
since two out of three death sentences are diminished on
appeal, the final charge to taxpayer's coffers is
outrageously high.
Opponents of the death penalty insist that if the state
wants to save money by killing its citizens, the elderly
and infirm could soon become target.
To further support their views, many proponents of capital
punishment are quick to cite the career of some twisted
murderer: Ted Bundy, Timothy McVeigh or Takuma Mamoru. They
insist that such monsters should not be spared from
retribution. But the strongest argument for abolishment is
not based on mercy for the criminal. To the contrary, it is
to protect the innocent. In the year 2005, the number of
prisoners who have been exonerated after serving lengthy
sentences in the U.S.A. is shockingly high: 121. That is
121people who have been found guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt and sentenced to die by their peers.
One of the more frightening stories to come out of the USA
revolves around a former Oklahoma police chemist Joyce
Gilchrist who was investigated by the FBI for knowingly
falsifying laboratory tests that were submitted as evidence
in trials. The chemist "worked in some capacity on the
cases against 11 people already put to death and another 12
waiting on death row." (Japan Times).
Putting the notions of economics and personal ambition
aside, the strongest argument against the death penalty is
that it has and will be used against innocent people. It is
undoable. The conscientious nations of the world have thus
abolished it. Japanese activists are convinced that if
America were to abolish the death penalty, their country
would soon follow suit. But as the current president
oversaw 152 executions in Texas during his reign as
governor, it is highly unlikely that their dream will be
realized in the near future. Perhaps the time has come for
Japan to eschew its historic "big brother" and fall in with
the world's more enlightened nations.
(An earlier version of this article was published in the
monthly magazine KANSAI TIME
OUT www.kto.co.jp)