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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   21799 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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You’ve pointed to one of the lowest-crime societies in the world, and attempted to present it as a cautionary tale. Seems like they’re doing a ton of things right over there that we may want to consider emulating.

Japanese people are thin and healthy, in comparison to Americans. But no amount of importing Japanese doctors or hospital systems would improve Americans.

My understanding of the Japanese justice system is that it is indistinguishable from railroading and I have no reason to think it accurately discriminates between guilty and innocent. Their conviction rate exceeds 99% and most prosecutors never lose a case.

I consider that failure to run a valid criminal justice system and certainly don't want it in America. Yeah let's lock up more people and longer. But give them the option of trial by jury with an adequate defense in order to minimize the most egregious false conviction of innocent people.

The American criminal conviction rate is also extremely high, north of 90%.

In 2018, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that among defendants charged with a felony, 68% were convicted (59% of a felony and the remainder of a misdemeanor) with felony conviction rates highest for defendants originally charged with motor vehicle theft (74%), driving-related offenses (73%), murder (70%), burglary (69%), and drug trafficking (67%); and lowest for defendants originally charged with assault (45%).

Federal prosecutors only go to trial when they are really confident, so their conviction rate is higher.

Japanese prosecutors ask the judges to declare guilt and they almost always declare guilt.

I very much doubt Japan's justice system is even one of many causal factors contributing to their low crime rate.

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