Social Governance Using Physical Pain: Military Punishment, Colonial Punishment, and Capital Punishment in the History of Penal Thought in Japan

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25885102
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Sociology
• Research Institution: Ritsumeikan University
• Principal Investigator: SAKURAI Satoshi 立命館大学, 衣笠総合研究機構, 研究員 (90706673)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-08-30 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 死刑 / 刑罰 / 歴史社会学 / 犯罪社会学 / 軍法会議 / 軍律法廷 / 戦争裁判 / 体罰

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The research focused on three specific issues, namely (1) Reconsideration of the debate regarding whether or not to abolish capital punishment; (2) The relationship between military punishment and punishment for the general public; and (3) The principle of disciplinary punishment in Japanese colonies as seen in the act of flogging.
Exploration of these issues revealed the following findings. (1) When the focus is placed on the executioner, pro-capital punishment sentiments are found to exist separately from the notion that the current capital punishment system should be maintained in its current form; (2) The developments of the Military Tribunal may have influenced the 1948 ruling by the Japanese Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of the death penalty; (3) Through re-examining the concept of corporal punishment and categorizing each type of corporal punishment in detail, it is revealed that the grounds for repudiating each type of punishment are all different in nature.

Free Research Field

歴史社会学