Kagoshima police deploy officers to monitor interrogations

Sunday 25th May, 01:47 AM JST

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

› Login to comment

Latest 15 of 22 Total Comments Show All

smithinjapan at 12:42 PM JST - 24th May

So, this is the police's answer to pressure to install cameras in interrogation rooms? To have ANOTHER officer 'objectively' (love how that's in quotations, by the way!) watch the proceedings? Need I remind you that he/she wears the same uniform as the corrupt police who beat confessions out of people? Wow... baffling. And all because not a single person was found guilty in the case mentioned.... must have lowered the 99% conviction rate slightly.
Youdontknow at 05:04 PM JST - 24th May

Police watching police do interrogations...what a bunch of crap! Won't change a damn thing. The only thing that will happen, is some old cop giving younger ones advice to bruise bodies under the clothing where it won't be seen!
Zen_Builder at 05:13 PM JST - 24th May

Even if they video all the interrogations and use outside people. Guess video editing and bribing contractors are not that common now.

Could have me fooled.
GrouchyGaijin at 07:02 PM JST - 24th May

Agreed, videotape and audiotape everything, but provide legal counsel all the way through. Enough of this "he confessed" BS!
Molenir at 12:05 AM JST - 25th May

I'd be satisfied with just the video. Sure its possible to fake, but the cost and time involved in doing so, makes proper behavior so much more likely.
buggerlugs at 12:42 AM JST - 25th May

Wish there had been this type of thing the time I was forced to sign documents that I wasn't even allowed to read to check the contents... never will sign anything again for the... well for want of a better word... atempts at "police people"
Patrick Smash at 09:52 PM JST - 25th May

I've been having some of this out with nigelboy on the Nick Baker thread. Apparently this story must be made up, because forcing confessions is illegal here, and therefore never happens. The Kagoshima police must know this never happens, has never happened, and cannot ever happen, making any form of supervision unnecessary, and this story therefore untrue.

buggerluggs, there are those who will immediately call you a liar for making the above comment, but i am certainly not one of them. I know three foreigners that similar things happened to, and one Japanese. Being able to read it would have made no odds my friend.

What gets me is how this can possibly be aceptable to the Japanese people, who are the main victims of the (I believe uncomfortably frequent if not predominant) miscarriages of justices caused by forced confessions. It really is time the Japanese people started making a lot of noise about the darker side of the criminal justice system.

Interviews should have to be recorded, or they should be inadmissable as closed interrogations are completely open to abuse. Having a senior police officer watch his trainees at work is a ludicrous response to a problem that the public is increasingly aware of.

Also note the use of physically touch them in the article. The so-called mild torture techniques, the sleep and sensory deprivations, the noise and the lights and the rest of it; none of this is to be stopped. And nothing said about the conditions people are held in, the absence of legal assistance, the only being able to wash every third day, the lack of food, the restraints they use, or any of the rest of it.

Simply awful, and how could anyone believe that having another police officer rubber-stamp the process somehow legitimizes it!
medievaltimes at 11:20 PM JST - 25th May

It really is time the Japanese people started making a lot of noise about the darker side of the criminal justice system.

Agreed. But look at how passive they are. Politicians basically openly steal tax payers money and there is a "it cant be helped" attitude.
stan08 at 08:26 AM JST - 26th May

Cops monitoring cops, where is the objectivity?
Scrote at 08:41 AM JST - 26th May

My hope is that once the jury system begins next year many cases will be thrown out as the only "evidence" will be a confession obtained under duress. This should eventually force the police to start videotaping interrogations.

Also, if Kagoshima police really are using officers to monitor interrogations it means that they will become even more inefficient than they are now. Of course, it's probably all lies and there will be no monitoring at all.
Simon_Foston at 08:44 AM JST - 26th May

What gets me is how this can possibly be aceptable to the Japanese people, who are the main victims of the (I believe uncomfortably frequent if not predominant) miscarriages of justices caused by forced confessions. It really is time the Japanese people started making a lot of noise about the darker side of the criminal justice system.

Quite right. The thing is, I think people have complained about this perversion of justice that's going on but the police and prosecutors don't want their conviction rate to go down and neither do their friends in the LDP. The current Justice Minister, Kunio Hatoyama, has spoken about his desire to diminish the importance of the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" and generally doesn't strike me as the sort who'd consider strict supervision of interrogations to be necessary. Basically I don't think we'll see any improvement until Japan gets better people in government.
Hughgarse at 01:03 PM JST - 26th May

ALL interogations should be videotaped or at least audioed.. This is a drop in the ocean of what needs to change...
nigelboy at 01:11 PM JST - 26th May

I've been having some of this out with nigelboy on the Nick Baker thread. Apparently this story must be made up, because forcing confessions is illegal here, and therefore never happens. The Kagoshima police must know this never happens, has never happened, and cannot ever happen, making any form of supervision unnecessary, and this story therefore untrue.

Never stated such a thing there my friend. Quit making things up.
Patrick Smash at 04:15 PM JST - 26th May

nigelboy,

You repeatedly insisted that confessions could not be forced here and used to convict people, because that would be illegal, and the police don't do illegal things. You even quoted the law book at us all with the irrelevant subsection.

You still don't want to admit there's a problem. You still want to believe that everyone charged is guilty because the police are beyond reproach. That is how you come across.

Do put the record straight though nigelboy. Let us know what you really think about secret unrecorded interviews, the 23-day law, and the police policing themselves due to concern at how interrogations operate. Interested to hear your views.
nigelboy at 10:04 AM JST - 27th May

I believe I made my situation clear by stating that such forced confessions that you scream about is not rampant among the judicial system in Japan. I even gave you the low % of arrested criminals who are subsequently incarcerated. And yes. I do feel sorry for those who are innocent. But on the other hand, I don't want to see an overhaul of the system just to protect the miniscule % of those who are innocent while letting the punishment escape for the 99.9999999999% of those who are indeed guilty of such crimes. (Nick Baker)