Imagine a prisoner sitting in solitary confinement waiting to die.
He has no idea when it will happen, but knows it is inevitable.
Think of the fear, the anxiety, the stress this prisoner must feel.
He wakes up every day not knowing if it is his last.
He falls asleep at night not knowing if he will be pulled from his bed to die.
The prisoner awakes for the day.
He sits alone with only his thoughts.
Water trickles down the sides of the windowless concrete walls that make up his cell.
He is pacing back and forth when there is a clunk.
The door to his cell unlatches.
It swings open.
When the prisoner looks out through the open doorway all he sees is a long empty hall.
He cautiously exits the room.
A door at the far end of the hallway slides open with a hiss.
The prisoner walks slowly, unsure of what’s to come.
When he is halfway down the hall the door to his cell slams shut and locks automatically.
The only way to go is forward.
He enters the doorway at the end of the hall, the glaring light from within the room blinds
him.
Standing in the room is a hooded figure.
In his hand is a noose.
The time has finally come.
The wait is over.
The prisoner walks calmly over and allows the noose to be placed around his neck.
He is relieved that the wait, and the not knowing, is finally over.
The hooded figure leaves the room.
It is silent again.
Time goes by, then suddenly the floor beneath the prisoner drops.
The rope tightens.
The execution is carried out.
This may seem like a cruel punishment from earlier times, but it’s not.
It is happening right now.
This scenario is part of being a prisoner on death row in Japan.
Let’s compare the death row process of Japan and the United States.
You will find some of the practices in these two developed nations to be surprising, and
not as developed as you might think.
There are only two first world democracies on the entire planet that still execute their
own citizens.
These two nations are Japan and the United States of America.
On average Japan incarcerates far fewer people than the United States.
In Japan, out of every 100,000 people 39 are sent to prison at least once in their life.
In the United States about 655 people per 100,000 are sent to jail.
This disparity between incarceration rates may make you think that Japan has a better
prison system, and therefore, a more humane form of death row.
You may be shocked at what we uncover as we explore the death row practices of Japan and
compare them to the United States.
Death row is the term given to the time from when someone is convicted and sentenced to
death until the execution date.
Let’s start by looking at how Japan and the United States differ in the sentencing
of prisoners who end up on death row.
In the United States a person who is arrested has the right to remain silent and an attorney
present during questioning.
This may seem normal to a lot of us, but that is not the case in Japan.
When questioned in Japan, the accused is not allowed representation.
They may remain silent, but as we will see this tends not to work out.
In Japan police can keep suspects in custody for up to 23 days without evidence.
There have been reports of Japanese police torturing suspects, both mentally and physically,
to get a confession.
It wasn’t until 2016 that Japan instituted mandatory video recordings of interrogations.
Unfortunately for suspects, this only applies to 3% of Japan’s criminal cases.
The only interigaitons that are recorded are for serious charges such as murder.
All other interrogations are done in secret.
In contrast the United States justice system requires that there be a third party present
during questioning of a suspect.
The prisoner can waive their right to counsel, but this is rare.
Even in these uncommon cases without a lawyer present the interrogations are still monitored.
One main reason for this is to keep police from forcing a confession using unreliable
methods.
The United Nations and other human rights advocates have concluded through numerous
studies that confessions through torture and inhumane practices are almost never reliable.
Unfortunately, the Japanese criminal justice system does not see it that way.
Iwao Hakamada was arrested and later convicted for the murders of several people in Japan.
He claimed he was subjected to more than 240 hours of questions for over 20 days.
There were no video recordings of the interrogation process, so we will never know what actually
happened during that time.
However, the amount of time Hakamada spent in custody is undeniable.
Iwao was one of the few who appealed his death sentence and was granted a hearing.
But the hearing nerve came.
For five decades Iwao sat in solitary confinement on death row, making him the longest serving
death row inmate ever.
Recently, his sister with the support of various legal organizations convinced the district
court to order a retrial.
The district court decided to free Iwao to await his retrial at home.
He was released from prison due to his fragile mental state after spending almost 50 years
on death row.
Unfortunately, Iwao is still waiting for his reltrial, and if found guilty a second time
he could go back to prison.
Until then, Iwao sits at home waiting to see if he will become a free man or return to
death row.
In the United States, as in most democracies, confessions obtained after more than 200 hours
of interrogation are ruled as involuntary, unreliable, and can not be used as evidence
in court.
This is not the case in Japan, which may be why the country has a 99% conviction rate.
When someone is arrested for a crime and a confession is secured by police, regardless
of the means, that person is guilty.
The evidence against them may be shoddy and they may have been tortured, but that does
not stop the state from convicting them.
Prosecutors tend to only pursue cases they think will lead to a guilty verdict.
This is practically everyone who is brought to court.
Since crime rates are so low in Japan, someone who is brought to court is already assumed
to be guilty.
Jurors automatically assume they have committed the crime even before hearing the evidence.
This leads to an easy conviction and a high conviction rate.
The United State also has a high conviction rate.
In the United States conviction rates have risen over the decades and are currently around
90%.
However, only Japan can boast a conviction rate of 99%.
With higher conviction rates, are their higher execution rates in Japan than in the United
States?
The most recent data from Japan reports that 24 people were executed between 2012 and 2016.
However, since 1977 the annual number of executed inmates has never been more than nine people
in a year.
In 1998 the Japanese Justice Ministry released a report that stated seven people were executed
in one week, which was the largest number of executions in that amount of time.
Regardless of how you feel about the death penalty, the United States execution rates
are startling.
In 2018 alone 25 death row inmates were executed.
That is more than Japan executes in three years.
In 2019, 22 prisoners were executed in the United States.
This is just two less than all of the executions in Japan between 2012 and 2016.
Japan may have a higher conviction rate than the United States, but the U.S. executes many
more prisoners than Japan does.
This may be shocking, but there is ofcourse also a massive population difference between
the two nations, meaning more criminals in one than the other, and thus more capital
punishment.
Once convicted and sent to death row do inmates have any rights?
In the United States there are human rights organizations that monitor the conditions
for inmates on death row.
Almost all of these human rights organizations agree that the death penalty and the preceding
trial violate the prisoner’s rights.
And it is not just inmates on death row that have it hard.
The conditions for regular prisoners in the U.S. can be harsh.
If you don’t believe us watch any of the other Infographics Show videos on prisons.
I think you’ll be surprised at what you find.
In Japan things are a little more tricky when it comes to basic rights.
Like in the United States, death row inmates can appeal to the Supreme Court for another
hearing.
Unfortunately for the inmates in Japan, just because you appeal does not guarantee you
won’t be executed before your case can be heard.
There are multiple accounts of prisoners who requested retrials and were executed while
waiting to hear back about pending court dates.
The law in Japan says that execution must take place within six months of the court’s
decision.
In reality the executions take years, but just because you have a pending retrial does
not mean you are protected from being executed in Japan.
One problem that plagues both countries' death row inmates is that many suffer from mental
illness.
This factor is often overlooked, and when these prisoners are put in isolation their
conditions can deteriorate rapidly.
Both Japan and the United States keep death row prisoners in solitary confinement until
it is time for their execution.
These harsh conditions of isolation weigh heavily on older inmates.
For this population solitary confinement can lead to an increase in physical disabilities
causing excruciating pain for older inmates.
Two of the most profound differences between death row in Japan and in the United States
are the date and way prisoners are executed.
In the United States execution dates are set in advance.
This is considered to be better for the inmates mental stability.
Japan on the other hand does not give predetermined execution dates.
Instead, inmates on death row in Japan could be executed at any point after being sentenced.
Many don’t find out they are to be executed until the morning of their capital punishment.
This often leaves inmates with only an hour or two to prepare themselves for what is to
come.
The UN Committee against Torture has criticised Japan for this practice.
The psychological strain of not knowing when the execution will occur is literal torture,
not only to the inmate, but to their families as well.
It is true that in the United States prisoners do get to request a last meal.
Some prison systems honor everything an inmate asks for, others do not.
Either way death row prisoners do get a final meal.
Since there is no set date of execution in Japan inmates do not get a final meal on the
day they are to be executed.
If you had to guess right now, which country do you think would have more humane executions?
Would it be Japan with their surprise executions?
Or the United States with its high number of executions?
Is one way better than another?
We’ll let you be the judge.
In Japan executions are carried out by hanging.
The inmate is blindfolded and a black hood is placed over their head before they are
executed.
To release the executioners of their burden, three prison officers simultaneously press
the button for the trap door to open.
This way they will never know which button pusher was ultimately responsible for taking
the prisoner’s life.
In the United States things work a little differently.
Most often the prisoner is executed by lethal injection.
The deadly cocktail varies by state, but normally it consists of some form of paralytic before
a final poison is administered.
This is often done by people without any medical training.
It makes sense when you think about it as administering the chemicals to kill someone
would be in breach of a medical professionals Hipocratic Oath.
But unlike in Japan the person who is carrying out the execution knows without a doubt, they
are the one who delivered death to the inmate.
Also unlike Japan the United States allows execution methods to be determined at the
state level rather than having one standard federal policy.
Some states even allow the execuee to choose their method of execution.
States like Alabama and Tennessee in the United States allow their prisoners to choose which
method they would like to die from.
This led to some inmates asking for execution by electric chair.
The electric chair was discontinued after it became considered more humane to use chemicals
to kill a prisoner.
This could be because the outward appearance of someone being cooked alive by electricity,
is less desirable than a prisoner that quietly drifts off to sleep and then dies.
But in states that allow prisoners to choose their form of execution several have opted
to go by electric chair.
Another form of execution that prisoners in the United States have chosen to die by is
firing squad.
In 2010 Ronnie Lee Gardner was killed by a firing squad in Utah.
Is it more humane to let someone decide how they will be executed?
Maybe, but if you take into consideration the mental health of prisoners it’s probably
not.
One of the most surprising differences between the death row in Japan and in the United States
has to do with the general population.
Japan has a much higher support rate for the death penalty than the United States.
80% of Japense citizens support the death penalty, whereas in 2018 only 54% of United
States citizens supported the death penalty.
Even if you disagree with the way Japan carries out executions, the majority of Japanese citizens
do not.
The differences between death row in Japan and death row in the United States are clear.
What is less clear is if one is better than the other, or if there should be a death row
at all.
In 2019 Japan approved a decision to stop using the death penalty by 2020.
Huge amounts of pressure were put on them by human rights organizations, including the
United Nations, to abolish the death penalty before Japan hosted the Olympic Games.
The resolution was submitted to the heads of government in Japan.
The death penalty has still not been abolished.
To be fair, the United States has hosted the Olympics several times in the past, most recently
in 2002, yet the United States still uses the death penalty.
Apparently not getting rid of death row to host the olympics is something Japan and the
United States have in common.
For more prison facts watch 50 Insane Facts About Prison You Wouldn't Believe.
Or for and in depth look at what it’s actually like to be a death row inmate check out What
The Last 24 Hours of Death Row Prisoners Look Like.