Why Japan Still Has The Death Penalty

This article was in the Washington Post supplement of The Daily Yomiuri earlier this week:

Why Japan Still Has the Death Penalty

By Charles Lane
Sunday, January 16, 2005; Page B01

There is a place in the advanced industrial world where people are regularly sentenced to death, and executed, for their crimes. Some of the condemned deny their guilt -- and there are confirmed cases of mistakes in sentencing. But government officials say the system delivers retribution and deterrence fairly and efficiently.

This place is not Texas. It is Japan -- the only industrial democracy other than our own that still regularly executes convicted murderers. In 2004, the Japanese conducted two executions by hanging, the sole method employed there. In some years, the rate is double or triple that. This is nowhere near the rate in the United States, where 59 convicted murderers were put to death in 2004. But there are many more murders in the United States than in Japan, and our population is 295 million people compared to Japan's 127 million. When you adjust for those facts, Japan has recently been about as likely as Texas and Virginia to sentence killers to death.

Click here for the rest of the article (it requires free registration).

I think I have to challenge this writer's adjustments for Japan in saying they are "just" as likely as Texas to condemn a murder to death. I mean really, sometimes Texas executes over 100 people a year! It's like comparing apples and oranges.

However, I was dissappointed when Japan brought back the death penalty soon after I arrived here, this has been a deeply pacifistic country since WWII and it doesn't jibe with that policy. Furthermore, I was always under the impression that Japan was following the lead of America, which it tends to do from time to time, but this article points out that there is a lot of public support for the dealth penalty. However, I don't think the public is always right, and one of the roles of goverment is that of dispensing a righteous and humane method of justice. Apparently, according the article above, some European counties that don't have the death penalty have a populace who would support it, as well.