| I think almost everything you say about Japan is wrong. "99.9% of people accused of a crime ..." -- this is a reference to the fact that the Japanese criminal system's conviction rate is a startlingly high 99.9%. But what's going on here is that about 60% of criminal cases in Japan get suspended without going to court; prosecutors only proceed in cases where they are nearly certain of getting a conviction, so their 99.9% figure isn't comparable to (say) the US's 93% (that's a figure from 2012; I couldn't readily find anything more recent). (It may also be true that that 99.9% is artificially high, that substantially fewer than 99.9% of accused criminals who go to trial in Japan are actually guilty despite prosecutors' attempts to proceed only when sure of conviction. But even if say 10% of those convictions are wrongful, that's a much smaller effect than the fact that 60% of cases are abandoned without going to trial.) "... are forced to work in a gulag" -- so the claim here is that literally every person convicted of a crime in Japan then does forced labour. This is not true, for the simple reason that the great majority of people convicted of crimes in Japan (just like everywhere else) don't go to prison. Only about 15% do. (It is true that most prison sentences in Japan are imprisonment-with-labour. I'm not sure whether it's all of them; I've seen explicit claims that it is and explicit claims that it isn't. I shall not try to adjudicate whether "in a gulag" is a reasonable description of the life of those prisoners. Incidentally, they are mostly paid for the work they do in prison.) "Why? They implemented loads of socialist policies and blew up their debt." The Japanese debt-to-annual-GDP ratio hovered around 50% or so until about 1993 and then started rising rapidly, reaching its present level (the figure I've seen is 225%, not 266%, but in any case it's rather high) around 2012. But they had a policy of prison labour before their debt was large; e.g., here's http://www.jca.apc.org/cpr/kaido.html someone complaining about it in 1997 (debt-to-annual-GDP ratio about 70%) using prison labour figures from 1994 (debt-to-annual-GDP ratio about 60%). (I shall not try to adjudicate whether Japan's big increase in public debt is the result of "socialist policies".) "The only thing holding Japan together is the government slaves." About 50k people are in prison in Japan. The population of Japan is about 125M. That 0.04% of the population would have to be incredibly productive for their labour to be "the only thing holding Japan together". |
Tiny part of my comment, no offense or anything. Certainly hoping to learn where I am wrong.
>"99.9% of people accused of a crime ..." -- this is a reference to the fact that the Japanese criminal system's conviction rate is a startlingly high 99.9%
To be fair, it's hard to compare to English law systems. Perhaps it's totally fine, but when you connect the forced labour. I have questions that are unanswered.
>so their 99.9% figure isn't comparable to (say) the US's 93% (that's a figure from 2012; I couldn't readily find anything more recent).
Conviction rate in Canada is ~63%, even lower if you exclude plea deals. We could go into discussion about how for-profit prison system in the USA or illegitimate crimes being enforced. I'm pretty sure 93% is way too high and it's around ~70%.
>"... are forced to work in a gulag" -- so the claim here is that literally every person convicted of a crime in Japan then does forced labour. This is not true, for the simple reason that the great majority of people convicted of crimes in Japan (just like everywhere else) don't go to prison. Only about 15% do.
I think maybe we are comparing apples to oranges here.
>(It is true that most prison sentences in Japan are imprisonment-with-labour. I'm not sure whether it's all of them; I've seen explicit claims that it is and explicit claims that it isn't. I shall not try to adjudicate whether "in a gulag" is a reasonable description of the life of those prisoners. Incidentally, they are mostly paid for the work they do in prison.)
I will concede this. "In a gulag" was improper. The japanese prisons are not political prisoners like communism. As you say, most prison sentences are forced labour. There's the problem I have with Japan.
>The Japanese debt-to-annual-GDP ratio hovered around 50% or so until about 1993 and then started rising rapidly, reaching its present level (the figure I've seen is 225%, not 266%, but in any case it's rather high) around 2012
266.20% in 2020. Covid made it jump almost 30%
>But they had a policy of prison labour before their debt was large; e.g., here's http://www.jca.apc.org/cpr/kaido.html someone complaining about it in 1997 (debt-to-annual-GDP ratio about 70%) using prison labour figures from 1994 (debt-to-annual-GDP ratio about 60%).
Fair, I was saying that the only reason Japan hasnt collapsed to about 30% poverty like Greece is because of the forced labour.
>About 50k people are in prison in Japan. The population of Japan is about 125M. That 0.04% of the population would have to be incredibly productive for their labour to be "the only thing holding Japan together".
Japan is suspiciously low. Kind of impossibly low. Which in the context of the allegation that people are slaves. In a country with many yakuza orgs, sex trafficing, and some pretty strict rules around many other things(porn for example) it seems to me these numbers are impossible.
One day we will find out what the real numbers are. It also seems to me that clearance rates are impossible. Japan clears arson at >70%? The hell? impossible.