ABSTRACT
The Japanese penal system consists of 184 institutions in all, evenly distributed across eight penal regions. These 184 facilities comprise 76 (68 main and eight branch) prisons for convicted offenders, and 108 (eight main and 100 branch) detention houses for pre-trial detainees and those on death row. The 68 main prisons are divided into two broad categories: six juvenile prisons, and 62 adult prisons. The 62 adult prisons comprise 52 mainstream adult male prisons divided into just two security classifications, Category A for ‘those whose criminal tendencies are not yet confirmed’ and Category B for ‘those with confirmed criminal tendencies’. The remaining ten institutions are six women’s prisons, and four medical prisons. There are also 103 juvenile facilities (94 main and nine branch) nationwide, comprising 52 juvenile classification homes and 51 juvenile training schools, and a single women’s guidance home. Pre-charge detention is largely outside the purview of the Correction Bureau, with suspects held in police cells historically known as ‘substitute prisons’. This chapter examines the prison system in Japan from the perspective of Satoshi Tomiyama, who served as Director-General of the Japanese Corrections Bureau from 2016 to 2018.
