2015 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Balancing Security, Order and Human Rights in Japanese Prisons
| Project/Area Number |
26780084
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| Research Institution | Kyoto University |
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Principal Investigator |
Croydon Silvia 京都大学, 学内共同利用施設等, 助教 (00634643)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
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| Keywords | Nagoya Prison / prisoners' rights / Prison Law reform / Japan / Ministry of Justice / incarceration |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
My in-depth account of prison policy-making in Japan demonstrated the scope of the discretion that the Japanese Justice Ministry enjoys over prison management. I showed that while many of the prison management successes of Japan are the result of a system that gives individual guards a high degree of discretion, this kind of discretion can be taken too far, and even systematically abused, as seen in the 2001 Nagoya Prison scandal. I further documented the capability of the Japanese legislature to hold the bureaucracy to account and the potential for civil society to impact policy-making. Although these are not new observations, they are nonetheless noteworthy given the ongoing debates about who governs Japan, in which the bureaucracy was long seen as being the predominant force.
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