Issue:
July 2025 | Japan Media Review
Government attempts to place rehabilitation over punishment face numerous hurdles
On June 1, the Japanese government implemented revisions to the criminal law that call for a change in the mission of correctional institutions from punishment to rehabilitation, the first changes to the system since 1907. Convicted prisoners will now be divided into 24 categories of "correctional processes" determined by the individual character of each inmate.
According to an article in the June 2 edition of the Asahi Shimbun, the former terms used for “prison sentence”: choekikei and kinkokei, will be replaced with the word kokinkei, which in essence means the same thing. In the past, choekikei was used to refer to a prison sentence that included "hard labor," though hard labor has gradually been replaced over the years with lighter workloads. And while kinkokei just means standard incarceration, it often included labor of some kind. Kokinkei is meant to stress imprisonment for the purpose of rehabilitation, though the word itself doesn't necessarily include that concept, at least as far as laymen are concerned. In English-language media reports about the change in policy, the distinction between punishment and rehabilitation is explained with a fair amount of descriptive detail, since all three Japanese words tend to be translated as “prison sentence”.
The purpose of the change is to reduce recidivism, which has been rising over the years, even though the volume of crime has been decreasing. Between 55-60% of current inmates are repeat offenders. The new approach assumes that different types of prisoners have different needs. In 2023, 14.3% of Japan's 14,000 convicts were categorized as elderly who required special treatment. Other categories include people with intellectual and developmental disabilities who also need special treatment. But even prisoners who have no disabilities and are not elderly will often require different rehabilitation programs to enable them to re-enter society.
As already noted, the designation of choekikei in the past usually meant the convict was sentenced to hard labor, though in more recent years that usually meant woodworking, printing, cooking, etc., meaning skills that could realistically lead to employment on the outside. By removing the choekikei designation, work assignments are meant to become therapeutic rather than punitive, with an emphasis on teaching.
The change to rehabilitation may take some getting used to on the part of the correctional system. A different article in the same edition of the Asahi describes a 34-year-old man who was imprisoned in the Kansai region for two years and 10 months before being released in July 2024. His initial crime was stealing money from an old woman when he was 28. Because it was his first offense, he was given a suspended sentence of one year and eight months, during which he was caught stealing a pack of cigarettes, thus obliging the next court to send him to prison.
While inside he was assigned to a shop that made clothespins and was eventually evaluated as having an intellectual disability. However, the evaluation did not change the circumstances of his prison life. After release he entered a group home for disabled people in Osaka that controls the welfare money he gets from the state. A representative of the home told the Asahi that the man had not been taught in prison about how to manage his finances, and so the home itself kept his money and gave him an allowance.
The article also mentions a 59-year-old former member of a yakuza organization who was sent to prison in Shikoku for fraud and released in May this year. It was his third prison sentence. After completing his previous two sentences he was taken in by his mother. But she has since died so now he has nowhere to go, a problem exacerbated by his chronic health issues. The prison system did not prepare him for life on the outside, except to give him a number to call if he needed help. But when he called the number, the facility told him they could do nothing about his health condition, so he had no alternative except to enter a public shelter. He told the Asahi that he felt "safer" in prison because it guaranteed three meals a day, a roof over his head, and free medical care.
These two stories demonstrate how the previous correctional system did not believe it was its job to prepare inmates to re-enter society. If they have work on the inside, it's considered penance of a sort and is not necessarily geared toward meaningful employment in the long run, regardless of the purported intent. More significantly, basic social skills and knowledge are not imparted or stressed.
The new system is meant to correct this lack of preparation. A representative of one prison facility told the Asahi that the "function of a correctional facility should not end once a prisoner is released", and that most of the convicts he works with "strongly regret their actions and feel remorse". But such feelings tend to be qualified by reality on the outside, meaning the ex-cons' relative lack of success in finding work and receiving help for disabilities and health problems. Recidivism is not so much due to amorphous "character flaws" – a stereotype often attached to people who have been convicted of a crime – rather, it is a matter of basic self-preservation. The more of your life you spend in prison, the more that prison life becomes the default mode for life itself.
One hurdle the new system needs to overcome is the attitude of prison staff. The prison official said that many of the guards were "confused" by the new changes, which won't be fully implemented before the autumn. Violence by prison guards is a matter that still needs to be addressed. Several years ago it was reported that 22 guards assigned to Nagoya Prison repeatedly beat three prisoners who turned out to have intellectual disabilities that made it hard for them to communicate with the guards. In essence, the prisoners did not fully understand the guards' instructions, and the guards, frustrated, reacted violently.
The guards' explicit purpose is to maintain order, and thus the new rules complicate what they see as their job, which means the role of prison guards will need to change as the new system is implemented. That's the main reason why the justice ministry recently instructed prison personnel to start addressing prisoners with the honorific "-san" appended to their surnames.
Previously, guards addressed prisoners by their surname alone, although in its investigation of Nagoya Prison, the justice ministry found that guards usually employed slurs to address prisoners, especially those serving choekikei sentences. Since then, 35 specific slurs have been banned in Japanese prisons. One guard told the Asahi that he agreed with the new focus on rehabilitation, but that it is "the responsibility of the guard to keeps things safe", which means they concentrate on "not allowing unsafe situations". A guard will be held responsible if something goes wrong, so the guard will act accordingly. What guards need to learn now is to be "objective" and react to situations in a uniform manner. When guards are required to "think in the moment," violence and unpleasantness often result.
"The authorities should provide more training for guards and increase manpower in general," the prison official said, adding, "otherwise it will be difficult to carry out this new plan."
A March 21 post on the Bunshun Online website looked at how the new system would affect the elderly and disabled. Written by Joji Yamamoto, a former national lawmaker who did a stint in prison for misappropriation of funds and is now the go-to writer for prison-related issues, the article recounts his visit to a prison where he met a man, whom he calls Kawabata, who was due for release in 45 days. Kawabata, who was in his early 50s at the time "but looked much older", suffered from delusions that may have indicated schizophrenia. When Yamamoto asked him what he would do after he was releases, he insisted that he would live in the White House in Washington D.C., a claim that annoyed his keepers no end, since they were trying to get him to seek help from "welfare services" once he got out. Yamamoto related that this story had changed over time; previously, Kawabata had said he would live in the imperial palace in Tokyo.
Yamamoto presents Kawabata as a common type in the prison system because of his cognitive deficiencies. Prior to his initial prison stay he slept on the street, and his first arrest was for "stealing" something he had found unattended. His mental health was never an issue, so he was treated as a regular criminal who knew that he was doing wrong. As is normally the case, he was given a suspended sentence for his first offense and quickly offended again, obstructing justice after he talked to a junior high school student who reported his "strange behavior" to the police and then acted violently when officers questioned him. When he was released after serving two-and-a-half years, he had nowhere to go. His parents were dead, and his younger sister said she couldn't take care of him. She had done that once in the past but was always apologizing to neighbors for his odd behavior and loud voice. He had no work experience.
Penal officials agree that rehabilitation is difficult without the cooperation of the prisoner. If the person doesn't understand the process, then Article 26 of the Mental Health Welfare Law is applied, meaning that the head of the correctional facility reports to a prefectural governor that the ex-convict will be living in that governor's prefecture. That means the ex-convict is now the prefecture's problem but, according to the Bunshun article, in reality local governments do nothing. In 2023, 16,233 people were released from prison. Among them, 3,537 were reported to prefectural governors in accordance with Article 26 as having mental disorders, but only 51 were referred to programs by the relevant prefectures.
More than one in five ex-cons suffer from a mental disability, but the rate may be much higher since evaluations are not always carried out in prison. Of the 14,000 new convicts in 2023, more than 20% were evaluated to have IQs of less than 69, which implies an intellectual disability. The real rate, according to experts, is probably around 40%, which is much higher than that for the general public. Those with serious disorders are classified as such and placed in "medical facilities", which are essentially prisons with doctors and nurses. Kawabata was classified as such, but it was not a strict diagnosis, so he remained in a conventional prison where he received no special care.
The situation of elderly prisoners and recidivism has been covered extensively by the media in recent years, especially cases in which older ex-cons purposely commit crimes so that they will be sent back to prison, where their needs are attended to in ways that may not be readily available on the outside. However, one classification of elderly prisoner will likely be the real test of the new system – criminals who have been given "indefinite sentences". Technically speaking, there is no such thing as a "life sentence" in Japan. People who commit serious crimes to which the death penalty can apply sometimes get sentenced to indefinite prison time instead, which implies incarceration for life. Paroles are possible but highly unlikely. Under such circumstances, is it the responsibility of the corrections system to try to rehabilitate the prisoner? The death penalty is, of course, the ultimate punishment; it does not even consider the idea of rehabilitation. But what about people with indefinite sentences?
In early June, TBS News broadcast a story with an accompanying print article about this issue. About 1,700 people are currently serving indefinite sentences in Japan. In recent years, fewer paroles have been granted to people with indefinite sentences - only three in the last 10 years – which means that more people are dying in prison of old age and related infirmities.
The report centered on Miyagi Prison, which is next door to the Sendai Detention Center, one of seven places in Japan were executions are carried out. Miyagi prison holds 500 people, one third of whom are serving indefinite sentences. The prison has a mortuary and a medical clinic with beds. Three-quarters of the patients in the clinic at any one time are serving indefinite sentences.
The reporter was able to talk to prisoners in the clinic. All were old and had impaired cognitive functions. One nurse told the reporter that when she first came to the prison to work, she was afraid because all her patients would be criminals, most of them serving indefinite sentences, which made her think they were dangerous. But now she just sees them as patients.
Most people who learn of the situation at Miyagi Prison are surprised to discover that a correctional facility has a full-time, fully operational medical facility, and that these are common throughout Japan's penal system. Miyagi has seven doctors and 20 nurses. Almost all prisoners in the prefecture who have medical problems are sent there. The head doctor told TBS that he had seen many people die in prison. Almost all were serving indefinite sentences and had no family. When a prisoner dies, the prison will hold a funeral, but the only attendees are staff.
The head guard said the quality of "welfare" in the prison was probably better than on the outside. The public – especially the families of the victims of the convicts concerned – would be angry if they were aware of this, since the consensus is that criminals should be punished, not helped. The warden was worried. "The public probably thinks these inmates are getting better treatment than they deserve," he said. "They may have a point, but [these convicts] will never leave prison, so it is our job to make sure they die humanely." According to one correctional facilities association, Japan spends ¥5 billion a year on medical care for prisoners. That's in addition to the cost of incarceration, which is about ¥3 million per prisoner per year.
Philip Brasor is a Tokyo-based writer who covers entertainment, the Japanese media, and money issues. He writes the Japan Media Watch column for the Number 1 Shimbun.
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