| Project/Area Number |
26780084
|
|---|
| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
|
| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
|---|
| Research Field |
Politics
|
|---|
| Research Institution | Kyoto University |
|---|
Principal Investigator |
|
|---|
| Project Period (FY) |
2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
|
| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2015)
|
| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,640,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥840,000)
Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥2,210,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,700,000、Indirect Cost: ¥510,000)
|
|---|
| Keywords | 日本の刑務所 / 人権 / 被拘禁者取扱いのための標準最低規則 / 国連 / 社会安全・秩序 / 名古屋刑務所事件 / 監獄法 / Nagoya Prison / prisoners' rights / Prison Law reform / Japan / Ministry of Justice / incarceration / prison security / social safety / guards' discretion / foreign borrowing |
|---|
| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Focusing on the political events triggered by a sequence of inmate injuries and fatalities in Nagoya Prison which culminated in the 2005/6 reform of the 1908 Prison Law, I showed that while many of the successes of Japanese prison management are the result of the high degree of discretion given to individual guards, this kind of discretion can easily become systematically abused. Furthermore, I showed the capability of the Japanese legislature to hold the bureaucracy to account when called to do so. Specifically, I demonstrated how the Nagoya Prison abuses were noticed and responded to by the legislature following a tenacious campaign by prisoners' rights activists and their allies in the opposition parties. The politicians both responded to external inputs and realised their dominance in the political decision-making. This observation is important given the ongoing debates about who governs Japan, in which the bureaucracy was long seen as the predominant force.
|
