評論
打印
Criminal justice in Japan
日本的刑事司法
Forced to confess
屈打成招
Suspects in Japanese police cells are far too vulnerable to abuse
日本監獄里的政治嫌犯極其脆弱，易受欺凌
ON THE face of it Japan's system of criminal justice looks as if its gets a lot right. Crime rates are lower in Japan than almost anywhere else—the murder rate is less than a tenth of America's. Those arrested for minor wrongdoing are treated with exceptional leniency. Less than one in 20 Japanese deemed to have committed a penal offence go to prison, compared with one in three of those arrested in America, where the average jail term is much longer. In Japan the emphasis is on rehabilitation, especially of young offenders. The rates of recidivism are admirably low, partly because the state is adept at involving families in reforming those who stray.
日本的刑事司法體系表面看來是挺公正的。日本的犯罪率比大多數國家都要低得多——謀殺率連美國的十分之一都不到。那些由于輕微違法行為而入獄的人通常會得到特殊的寬大處理。犯了刑事罪的人中只有不到二十分之一的會進監獄，而這個比例在美國則是三分之一，且刑期也比日本長得多。日本注重的是對罪犯，尤其是對年輕罪犯的改造。慣犯的比例也是極其的低，部分原因在于日本在改造這些迷失自我的人時善于融入家庭的力量。
Yet the state's benign paternalism has a dark side. The chief reason the system looks good is that Japan is a remarkably safe society. And where once police worked closely with local communities to solve crimes, now they struggle to catch criminals. The system relies on confessions, which form the basis of nine-tenths of criminal prosecutions. Many confessions are extracted under duress. Some of those who admit guilt are plainly innocent, as recent exonerations have shown. The extraordinary lack of safeguards for suspects in Japanese interrogation cells is a stain on the whole system, failing victims as well as those wrongly convicted.
但日本家長式作風有利有弊。日本司法體系看起來運作良好，主要是由于日本是一個非常安全的社會。曾經，為了破案警民密切合作，而現在，警方想要抓住罪犯卻困難重重。日本司法體系的根基依賴于招供——90%的刑事起訴案件即是如此。很多人是在脅迫之下承認了罪行。最近的無罪聲明顯示，在承認罪行的人中，有些明顯是無辜的。日本審訊室中的嫌疑犯極其缺乏安全保障，這是日本司法體系的一個污點，也讓受害者以及那些蒙冤者失望至極。
Say you did it, even if you didn't
欲加之罪 何患無辭
In a country more inclined than the West to think of itself as a big family collective, admission of guilt is often seen as the first step to readmission into society. It is also the surest route to a conviction. Prosecutors and police are thus under immense pressure to make suspects talk, and have powerful tools to encourage them to do so.
相比西方國家，日本社會更像一個集體式的大家庭，在這個國家里，承認犯罪通常被視為洗心革面重回社會的第一步。同時這也意味著定罪。日本檢方和警方因此不得不在巨大的社會壓力下逼嫌犯招供，而他們也有這個本事。
Common criminal suspects may be held in detention for 23 days without charge. Many have only minimal contact with a lawyer. Few interrogations are recorded, and then not in their entirety, so there is not much to stop interrogators piling in. Physical torture is rare, but sleep deprivation, which is just as effective, is common. So are various other forms of psychological coercion. Some interrogators use moral blackmail (“Think of the shame you are bringing on your family”). A few, if they are convinced that the suspect is guilty, simply fabricate a confession and press the suspect into signing it.
如果不經控告，一般嫌犯可能會被拘留23天。許多嫌犯與律師取得聯系的機會微乎其微。審訊一般都不會被記錄下來，即便記錄也非全部，因此阻止審訊員介入，無太多可為。身體上折磨少有，而與之同效力的剝奪睡眠卻十分見。因此形成了多種心理逼供。一些審訊員用精神壓迫進行逼供（“比如，想想你給你家人帶來的恥辱”）。如果他們確信犯罪嫌疑人有罪，一些審訊員甚至會捏造一份認罪書然后逼迫嫌犯簽字畫押。
In a court system without an adversarial approach to establish innocence and guilt, judges too rarely question whether confessions really are voluntary. Yet time and again innocent people have been shown to confess to crimes in the hope of a more lenient sentence—or simply to make the interrogation stop. In October a mother convicted of killing her daughter for the insurance money was released after a crime reconstruction proved her innocence. Last year Iwao Hakamada was freed after 46 years on death row when a judge declared that his conviction was unsafe (among other things, he appears to have been tortured at the time of his arrest). One lawyer estimates that a tenth of all convictions leading to prison are based on false confessions. It is impossible to know the true figure, but when 99.8% of prosecutions end in a guilty verdict, it is clear that the scales of justice are out of balance.
在沒有抗辯制度確認無罪或有罪的法庭中，法官很少質疑被告人悔罪是否出于自愿。然而屢次無辜者曾被指示：供出罪行便有希望獲得較輕處罰——或者僅僅只為終止審問。十月，一位曾被指控為謀保險金而殺死自己女兒的母親，在案卷重審后得意無罪釋放。去年，經歷了46年死囚生涯的Iwao Hakamada也被釋放，因為法官宣布證據不足，不能認定他有罪（從其他方面，他似乎在被抓捕期間已經備受折磨）。據一位律師估計，所有獲罪入獄的罪犯中有十分之一是基于不實的供認。雖不可能了解這背后的真實數據，但是99.8%的起訴案件最后都是認定犯罪嫌疑人有罪。由此可見，司法公正已明顯蕩然無存。
As a step towards restoring due process, all interrogations should be filmed from start to finish. Suspects should have ready access to defence counsel, to whom prosecutors should also disclose all evidence. Interrogations should be much shorter; suspects should be properly rested. Investigators who fabricate evidence should be put in the dock themselves. Prosecution cases should rely more on detective work, and less on self-incrimination. Such reforms would not improve conditions in Japan's psychologically brutal prisons (see article). But they would give the innocent a better chance of keeping their liberty.
為了進一步恢復法定訴訟程序，應將審訊從始至終都拍攝下來并記錄在案。嫌犯應有權訴諸于辯護律師，檢察官也應向其辯護律師公開所有證據。此外，還應縮短審訊時間、妥善安置嫌犯。對于編造供詞的審訊員也應使其接受訊。起訴案件的處理應當更多地依賴于偵察工作，而非自我控告。這樣的改革并不能改善日本監獄中心理逼供的殘忍狀況（見文章）。但是他們將會為無辜者提供一個更好的機會以維系自由。翻譯：鄧小雪 & 顏琪琳 校對：王丹培
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