Also in 2024, Japanese prison sentences were mostly between 1 and 3 years, and about two thirds were fully suspended. https://www.moj.go.jp/content/001436547.pdf (page 20). Assuming an average of two years for the third not-fully-suspended, that works out to 8 months of time spent in prison per person handed a prison sentence.
That results in about a factor of 7 difference in prison population simply due to the difference in average sentence length. Maybe the US should sentence more people to prison but keep each of them there shorter.
The US court system already relies heavily on plea deals to not jam up the courts. Increasing the throughput of the justice system to facilitate your idea would require an order of magnitude investment into more courts, judges, public defenders, prosecutors, etc. I'm all for it, but the incredible cost does have to be considered
And they heavily influence (using pressure such as off-the-record interviews, and long detention times during the investigations) the suspect's statements so that it says what they need to make it a crime, even when it isn't.
Whatever the suspect may say afterwards, they just have to point out to the signed statement and say "but here you confessed".
Source: I have been directly living such occurrence lol.
That's what has been coined the "hostage justice" of Japan (referring in particular to the "long detention times during investigations" part above).
given the stats above, 33 of 100k incarcerated, vs 541 of 100k in the USA. I'm inclined to think that the USA has far more of those types of cases than Japan.
Hmm, the thing is that the hostage justice system does have a deterrent effect.
Its net effect is that you absolutely do not want to have anything to do with the police to help solve your problems in the society (true problems, not merely e.g. asking for directions). And then you really want to avoid problems at all.
So, you cannot think of them as "friendly useful workers to help solve problems", because they are heavily incentivized and biased to find or invent crimes if you give them the opportunity.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but police interviews are recorded in the US?
And also, you always have the right to an attorney? (that's not the case in Japan except if you want to stay 20 days incarcerated while waiting for an attorney, all for a tiny minor dismeanor).
Only 33 prisoners per 100k population (cf 541 in the US). Whatever they're doing, it's working.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarce...
In 2024, the average US prison sentence was for a duration of 52 months, with over half the total months being for drug trafficking (average 82 months) https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu... (page 11).
Also in 2024, Japanese prison sentences were mostly between 1 and 3 years, and about two thirds were fully suspended. https://www.moj.go.jp/content/001436547.pdf (page 20). Assuming an average of two years for the third not-fully-suspended, that works out to 8 months of time spent in prison per person handed a prison sentence.
That results in about a factor of 7 difference in prison population simply due to the difference in average sentence length. Maybe the US should sentence more people to prison but keep each of them there shorter.
The US court system already relies heavily on plea deals to not jam up the courts. Increasing the throughput of the justice system to facilitate your idea would require an order of magnitude investment into more courts, judges, public defenders, prosecutors, etc. I'm all for it, but the incredible cost does have to be considered
It's a different system, they don't go to court without iron-clad case. Japan does not have a large prison population.
And they heavily influence (using pressure such as off-the-record interviews, and long detention times during the investigations) the suspect's statements so that it says what they need to make it a crime, even when it isn't.
Whatever the suspect may say afterwards, they just have to point out to the signed statement and say "but here you confessed".
Source: I have been directly living such occurrence lol.
That's what has been coined the "hostage justice" of Japan (referring in particular to the "long detention times during investigations" part above).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostage_justice
given the stats above, 33 of 100k incarcerated, vs 541 of 100k in the USA. I'm inclined to think that the USA has far more of those types of cases than Japan.
Hmm, the thing is that the hostage justice system does have a deterrent effect.
Its net effect is that you absolutely do not want to have anything to do with the police to help solve your problems in the society (true problems, not merely e.g. asking for directions). And then you really want to avoid problems at all.
So, you cannot think of them as "friendly useful workers to help solve problems", because they are heavily incentivized and biased to find or invent crimes if you give them the opportunity.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but police interviews are recorded in the US?
And also, you always have the right to an attorney? (that's not the case in Japan except if you want to stay 20 days incarcerated while waiting for an attorney, all for a tiny minor dismeanor).
> you absolutely do not want to have anything to do with the police to help solve your problems in the society
this is commonly said in the USA as well
Ah ok, I see.
Maybe I rather have (had) the notion of police as it exists in the UK or some European countries.
There was the French "police de proximité" who acted as friendly allies (it seems it was dismantled in 2003, unfortunately).