The Culture of Capital Punishment in Japan

by David T. Johnson

This open access book provides a comparative perspective on capital punishment in Japan and the United States. Alongside the US, Japan is one of only a few developed democracies in the world which retains capital punishment and continues to carry out executions on a regular basis. There are some similarities between the two systems of capital punishment but there are also many striking differences. These include differences in capital jurisprudence, execution method, the nature and extent of secrecy surrounding death penalty deliberations and executions, institutional capacities to prevent and discover wrongful convictions, orientations to lay participation and to victim participation, and orientations to “democracy” and governance. Johnson also explores several fundamental issues about the ultimate criminal penalty, such as the proper role of citizen preferences in governing a system of punishment and the relevance of the feelings of victims and survivors.

Genres: Japan

140 pages, Hardcover

Published November 28, 2019

Reviews

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

First of all, I openly admit that this was the first reading that I did on the topic of the capital punishment in Japan. Several things attracted my attention, namely - clandestine procedures of capital punishment, inmates being notified about execution right before it happens (maybe it is just another method of punishing the inmates and making their sentence more severe?), and how wrong (according to the author) capital punishment is in general.

While the first two topics could be real issues, the latter showed that the author perceived capital punishment in Japan from an utterly American viewpoint. Great value could be added to the book if other topics were addressed as well - how the capital punishment in Japan developed (throughout the ages) into what it is today or what is the public opinion (of Japanese people) about it.