Daiyo kangoku

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Daiyo kangoku (daiyō kangoku 代用監獄) is a Japanese legal term meaning "substitute prison." Daiyō kangoku are detention cells found in police stations which are used as legal substitutes for detention centers, or prisons. The practical difference lies in the supervision of daiyō kangoku by the police forces, whereas detention centers are supervised by a professional corps of prison guards that are not involved in the investigative processes.

Daiyō kangoku came about to solve a shortage of prison cells in Japan in 1908. Though no shortage exists today, the practice has continued and has significant political support (Matsubara 2004). It has been controversial, however, because of its role in eliciting confessions from Japanese criminal suspects.

[edit] Controversy

In the Japanese criminal justice system, suspects can be detained for as many as seventy-two hours under the standards of habeas corpus also present in the United States and other countries. After this seventy-two hour period, however, Japanese prosecutors and police (both have investigative responsibilities) can request the further ten days' detention of the suspect. These ten days are frequently used by the investigative authorities to elicit confessions from the suspect. During this time the suspect has limited access to counsel. He may assert a right to silence, but he cannot end the interrogation, or "interview," as it is termed by Japanese authorities. The authorities have a great deal of control over the suspect's well-being, and can restrict meals or access to family. Intensive interrogation practices are often used, and the condition of daiyō kangoku are considered worse than those in Japanese regular detention centers (Saito 179). Should more time be required to elicit a confession ("unavoidable delay" in Japanese legal terminology), the public prosecutor can request a further ten days of detention. This amounts to twenty-three days of legal detention without charges filed, a possibility which has made human rights and civil liberties activists in Japan question the appropriateness of the system.

Requests by prosecutors for any form of extended detention are almost always granted; in 1987, the rate of approval for all requests was 99.8% (Miyazawa 20). That same year, 85% of arrested detainees were kept in daiyō kangoku facilities for longer than seventy-two hours; more than a third of suspects were held without charge for longer than ten days by a judge’s decision to extend the time limits (Saito 179).

[edit] References

• Matsubara, Hiroshi (Jun. 9, 2004). “Substitute Prison System Likely to Survive Revision.” Japan Times. Available: Lexis-Nexis.
• Miyazawa, Setsuo (1992). Policing in Japan: A Study on Making Crime, trans. Frank G. Bennett, Jr. with John O. Haley. Albany: SUNY Press.
• Oda, Hiroshi (1999). Japanese Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 423-424.
• Saito, Toyoji (1992). “Preventive Detention in Japan.” In Stanislaw Frankowski and Dinah Shelton (Eds.), Preventive Detention: A Comparative and International Law Perspective. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Press.