Abstract

Silvia Croydon

Kyoto University

The Politics of Police Detention in Japan: Facilitating Interrogations

Japan’s criminal justice system diverges in a number of ways from its counterparts in the rest of the developed world; famously, for instance, it returns some of the highest rates for confession, conviction and crime clearance. Amongst developed nations, Japan also permits criminal suspects to be held in police detention prior to being charged with a crime the longest – up to 23 days for each charge. With a view to informing the stagnant international debate on this issue, which has important ramifications for the human rights of suspects, this presentation will provide an examination of the historical basis for this policy choice, and the modern day domestic police detention policy-making landscape.