Research On Criminal Treatments In Japan

What is criminal policy? The famous German criminal scholar Franz von Liszt held that criminal policy is about the reasons inducing criminals and principles which serve as the basis of the punishment's effects, and criminal policy also includes the legal practice carried out by the government to struggle against criminals by punishment or similar method on the basis of aforementioned principles. Generally, criminal policy includes all the activities which base on the investigation of criminal phenomena and the underlying reasons taken by the government to prevent, crack down criminals, and criminal treatments. The criminal policy that insists on constitutionalism and humanitarianism prevents criminal and recriminal, and makes the criminal return to the society through corrective education. Criminal treatments are the main contents of criminal policy. Criminal treatments take preventing criminal and making the criminal regenerate as purposes, include imposing judicial sanctions and punishment during the judicial period, laboring and instructing during the corrective period, and educational regeneration treatment during the protective period. Criminal treatments take humanitarianism, justices, rule of law, and specific treatment as principles, take "non-criminalized and non-punishment", and "regeneration through education" as the philosophy, emphasize protecting human rights, has gradually developed forwards the tendency of alleviating criminal punishment and making criminal execution socialized.Judicial treatment is the criminal treatment during the judicial period. It is the legal practice that emphasizes the philosophy of non-criminalized and non-punishment, includes three parts: police, prosecution and adjudication. The minor criminal treatment during the police period is the legal system that exempts from criminal punishment for the extreme minor criminals. The suspension of prosecution is the system that deals with the cases before adjudication through non-prosecution. The merit of this system is that it improves the efficiency of criminal proceedings, avoids the disadvantages brought by "convicted criminal", and makes the regeneration of criminal easier to achieve. The suspension system during adjudicative period consists of declared suspension and executed suspension, it is the direct manifestation of punishment alleviation and humanitarianism. The punishment system of Japan which insists on idea of correction, education and regeneration in modern criminal policy, includes punishment depriving life (death penalty), punishments by imprison or curtailment of liberties which consist of penal servitude, imprison, detention, property-oriented penalties which consist of fine, minor fine, and confiscation. With regard to death penalty, there is always the debate on whether it is should be abolished or not. Even though the death penalty has not been abolished in legal texts, the application of death penalty is rare in legal practice mainly due to the consideration of respecting to life, and the scholars have designed absolute life imprisonment and comparative life imprisonment to supersede death penalty. Punishment by imprison is the main type of criminal punishment, however, short-termed imprisonment penalty induces various shortages. In order to avoid the shortages of short-termed imprisonment penalty, Japan usually uses property-oriented penalties as the substitutes of short-termed imprisonment penalty. During the property-oriented penalties, fine penalty is the most frequent used penalty, however, fine penalty only applies to minor criminal, and it is far from perfect. The most obvious imperfect aspect of fine penalty is how to dispose when it is impossible to pay the fine. Accordingly, Japan is trying to establish fine-execution suspension system, the system of extending the payment period and dividing the payments, free-laboring payment system, social servants system and day-accounted fine system.Corrective treatment which is also named as treatment inside institutions has pretty long history. The earliest example in corrective treatment history was the Buredvier Workhouse which was established in 1555, London, England. This workhouse accepted paupers, mental disorders and the persons who committed minor criminals to proceed laboring and professional training. Corrective treatment in Japan could be traced to the Shi Chuan DaoSpecialized Professional Training Institution in Edo period, which provided shelter for homeless persons. Nowadays' corrective treatment takes imprisoned criminal as the object, is regulated by "Law of Treatment about Criminal Detained Institutions and Inmates", and takes criminal laboring and corrective education as the main contents. Criminal laboring is the compulsory duty of punished criminal, with the purpose of breeding the criminal's consciousness of laboring and improving his/her professional skills and technologies. Corrective education is the system based on criminal laboring aims at providing direct face-to-society instruction and aids, with the purpose to make the criminals return to the society as soon as possible. To conform to the worldwide tendency of making the execution of criminal punishment socialized, Japan also established the transit treatment model which intends to make criminal treatment inside institutions (corrective model) transfer to criminal treatment inside society (reformed model). The forms of this kind of middle treatment system mainly include Open Treatment, Working outside Prisons, and Leaving in the Weekends.Protective treatment which is also named as the treatment inside society is the system which developed in 19th century with the influence of educational protection idea and treatment philosophy. The protective treatment in Japan has long history, especially the "Law of Regenerated Protection" promoted the Japan's criminal treatment in society to the higher stage. The regenerated protection refers to the activities that provide instruction, supervision and aids for criminals and delinquencies to prevent criminal, protect society, and promote individual and pubic welfare. The protective treatment of Japan mainly consists of parole, amnesty, reduction of the period of execution, protection for regenerated persons in need, protective supervision. Parole is the system to release the convicted criminal defendants or delinquencies who have been detained in prison or detention jail before completing their sentences under certain conditions. Amnesty is the abolition of an offense by the government, with the legal result that those charged or convicted have the charge or conviction wiped out. The basis for amnesty is generally because the changes of society and adjustment of statutes that made the acts criminal no longer exist or have faded in importance. Amnesty includes general pardon, special pardon, reduction of sentence, exemption of punishment execution, and restoration of rights. Reduction of the period of execution means that the criminal may have his/her execution period reduced if, during the period his/her punishment is being executed, he/she earnestly observes prison regulations, accepts reform through education, truly repents, or performs meritorious service. Protection for regenerated persons in need refers to the system that when there is no family or public welfare organs to provide necessary help for the criminals who have been released from detention according to criminal proceedings, the government would provide help such as housing, daily necessities to help meet an urgent need or accept the such persons into certain institutions to be given necessary education, training or medical treatment to promote them observe rules and regulations, and achieve the purpose of rehabilitation. Protective supervision is the system that aims at providing education, instruction, aids for criminals and juvenile delinquencies to make them successfully reformed, regenerated and return to the society. The objects of protective supervision are punished juvenile delinquencies, juvenile parolee, parolee, suspended sentence under protective supervision and women parolee. Japan's regenerated protection sufficiently which makes use of the efforts of non-government has the characteristics the association of government and non-government and the participation of society.In recent years, Japan appears the tendency that specialized criminals are increasing, such as juvenile delinquency, mental disorder, traffic criminal, the elder criminal, violent unit criminal, and sexual criminal. During these criminals, juvenile delinquency is one of the fastest increased criminal type, and most of this kind criminal is great ferocious criminal. The government according to the law of juvenile, basing on "paternalism" and "protective characteristic", provides protective disposition for juvenile delinquency with the purpose of protecting human rights and healthy growing-up. The forms of protective disposition include protective supervision, juvenile self-sustaining support institution, or transferring to children welfare home and juvenile training school. Furthermore, mental disorder criminal is also the high frequent criminal in recent years. Mental disorder refers to mental sickness, the retarded, psychopathic personality. According to "Criminal Law" "Medical Treatment Observation Law", the mental disorders should be imposed Protective Disposition - compulsory medical treatment. The basis of compulsory medical treatment is "the idea of public power" and "paternalism". The idea of public power means in order to protect the society, the government should use the public power to impose medicinal treatment to the mental ill person. Paternalism means that since the mental ill persons do not have the ability to choose medical treatment, the government should consider for them and choose medical treatment for them. Compulsory medical treatment has its restriction that it must be limited in the purpose of preventing recriminal and helping regeneration. As the protective disposition is mandatory, there is the monism and dualism debate on the relationship between protective disposition and criminal punishment. From the perspective of legislation, most of the countries adopt the dualism to deal with the relationship between protective disposition and criminal punishment. Besides criminals, the unsentenced inmate is also the object of this research, which refers to the suspect and defendant during the period of investigation, initiation of public prosecution and trial. As the unsentenced inmate differs from criminal in nature, the unsentenced inmate has broader rights and freedom than criminal.