Why Are the Crime Rates So Low in Japan

Krisna Ransom

Professor Steven O’Boyle

Sociology 101

October 28, 2014

          Throughout this reading, the main question running through my mind was “Why are the crime rates so low in Japan?” “Why Japan?” What makes Japan so different than the US to have so low of crime rates?” I then learned about two different types of theories that provided an answer to all of my questions above. Hirschi’s Control Theory, was a theory that basically embarrassed the prisoners. It mentioned in the slideshow how they were shunned and embarrassed daily for the crimes they committed. For example, the man was talking about how he had been shunned and how when he would go places he could hear people talking about him, once he was released from prison. I think that this theory is why the crime rates are so low in Japan. People there know that if they commit a crime, that after they are released from prison, they will forever be remembered for what they had done. It also mentioned how in prison, the prisoners were not allowed to even make eye contact with each other.  Juvenile rates are much lower in Japan due to the label that the juveniles get after doing such crimes. For example, if you go to prison for murder, then even when you are released from prison, you will always be labeled as a murderer. Another example if when people steal things. Regardless of how long it has been since you last stole something, people will still always look to you as a theft, and will never want to leave you alone with any personal items. It ruins your character. Although the same thing happens in the US, I think the labeling theory is much more successful in Japan because the people in Japan don’t want a bad name for their selves. In the US, people have it in their head that they can do what they want, and that nothing bad will happen to them. Just like in one of our discussion questions this week; Prisons in the US are too well suited for the prisoners in my opinion. The way I see it is that once a person commits a serious crime, they never truly learn from it because they are sentenced to life in prison, but yet the prisons are clean, they have televisions, they get to play sports outside, etc. That’s not how prison should be to me. I believe if we had Japanese citizens to come to our prisons, they would be more prompt to commit another crime because they never truly learned their lesson for what they done. In Japan, after being in their prisons and receiving their punishment, the released prisoners will never be able to have a good and decent job, or have a good name for themselves ever again. It mentioned on the slideshow how the man said once he was released from prison, that people still looked to him as a murderer, and that he couldn’t find a good job, and also that he could hear people always whispering about him behind his back. Whatever you do in life, you will be labeled for. This enough should make people think before you commit a crime. People should ask themselves if it’s worth never being able to provide for your family, or if what you are about to do is something you want to be known for. For example, my dad use to be on drugs very bad. He lived a lifestyle that no one wanted to be a part of. In the end he lost his wife, his mother, his two children and so on. Even to this day, he is no longer on drugs, and is doing a lot better, but he is still known as a person on drugs. His family will not leave anything valuable around him, they don’t trust him to do anything, and they still constantly check up on him. That’s an example of how the crimes and things you do will forever haunt you, and will leave a label on you for the rest of your life. The factors that contribute to the higher crime rates in the US are the fact that the US are too easy on the prisoners. As I mentioned earlier, they know that when they commit a crime, the worst thing that will happen to them is that they will be placed in a prison for life; that has heat, air condition, television, games, nice beds, better food than public school, and etc. What else could they want? They would have everything they would need or want other than seeing their loved ones. I think if once a person committed a crime, they should truly be punished for what they did. If they killed someone, I think they should get the death penalty, and so on. Sitting in a nice prison for 25 years isn’t going to fix the problem. Making them go out and manually work, and being punished will remind them why they are where they are. Embarrassing them will put a reminder in their head of why they shouldn’t have done what they done. If you know that once you kill someone that you will be killed also, most likely people will think more before going around and killing innocent people. I personally think that the US needs to get some pointers from Japan, because the crime rates are steadily increasing in the US.