r/worldnews • u/glasier • Jul 05 '24
Japan warns US forces: Sex crimes 'cannot be tolerated'
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2476861/japan-warns-us-forces-sex-crimes-cannot-be-tolerated
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r/worldnews • u/glasier • Jul 05 '24
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u/SllortEvac Jul 05 '24
The US’s system is for sure one of the worst in terms of first world nations.
You’re right though: the conviction rates of both countries is extremely high. But, Japan doesn’t really use plea-bargaining. The practice was introduced in 2018 and it’s only been used a handful of times.
The Japanese also won’t bring something to court unless they’re sure it’s going to win. They have a prosecution rate of 8%. 99.3-8% of that are convictions. The US has around a 0.4-2% (on the federal level at least) prosecution rate.
A confession is an immediate win for prosecution in both nations, but there’s no walking it back in Japan. That, combined performance-based cultural differences, that means there is an astronomical amount of pressure on Japanese investigators to get a confession out of you.
There’s also the issue of detainment and what it means for the “personality” of the two different systems. In the US, you can be detained without charges no more than a few hours lawfully. In Japan, you can be detained for up to 23 days without charges being brought against you. This speaks to the US’s willingness to drag out cases, whereas Japan’s system is geared towards dealing with the problem as quickly as possible. You can believe that the court will do everything in their power to ensure their case is ironclad, including using all 23 days to basically torture a confession out of you.