英検1級に出そうな単語-Why Every Japanese Criminal is Guilty
日本の話しです。
法制度についてです。
誤審は
"failure of justice"もありますが、
"miscarriage of justice;誤審"→"miscarriage;流産、失策、誤り、誤配"
を覚えておくと便利です。
法律用語や英作文にも使えそうなものがあります。
"convict;有罪とする"→"acquit;無罪にする、放免する"
"in comparison to;～と比較して"
"death penalty;死刑"→"capital punishment;死刑、極刑"
"sentence;判決を下す、文章、判決"
"lose face;恥をかく、面目を失う"→"save face;面目を保つ、顔を立てる"
"farce;茶番、道化芝居"
は特に重要です。
"notoriously;悪名高い"
"draconian;厳しい、過酷な"
"end up in;最後に～になる"
"penal system;刑罰制度"→"penal;刑法の、処罰されるべき", "penalty;罰、罰金"
"criminal court;刑事法廷、刑事裁判所"
"convict;有罪とする"→"acquit;無罪にする、放免する"
"farce;茶番、道化芝居"
"Stalinist;スターリン主義者"→"Stalinism;スターリン主義"
"legal system;法律制度"
"astronomically;天文学的に、膨大に"
"prosecutor検察官、検事;"→"prosecution;起訴、告発"
"propaganda;政治的な宣伝、プロパガンダ"→"propagate;宣伝する、伝える、広める"
"in comparison to;～と比較して"
"conviction;有罪判決、確信"
"wary;慎重な、用心深い"
"acquittal;無罪放免、釈放"→"acquit;無罪にする、放免する"
"lose face;恥をかく、面目を失う"→"save face;面目を保つ、顔を立てる"
"rubber-stamp;にゴム印を押す、軽率に承認する"
"subservience;役立つ、貢献"
"akin;類似している、同族である"
"sacrilege;冒涜"
"presume;推定する、仮定する"
"stained;汚された、染み付いた"
"genuine;本当の、正真正銘の"
"internally;内面で、内部で"
"death penalty;死刑"→"capital punishment;死刑、極刑"
"sentence;判決を下す、文章、判決"
"knowingly;心得て、故意で"
"inflict;加える、負わせる"
"addle;混乱させる、腐らせる"
"comprehend;理解する、把握する"
"tearful;泣いている、悲しい"
"vegetative;成長の、発達の、単調な、無為の、植物のように生きる"
"plethora;過度、過多"
"esteem;尊重する、重んじる"
"overlook;見落とす、見晴らす"
"self-reported;自己申告の、自己報告の"
"equate to;同じである"
"equate;一致する、同等とみなす"
"defer;延期する、延ばす"
"perpetually;永久に、ひっきりなしに"
"underreport;過小報告する"
"obscene;常識から外れた、ひわいな、不愉快な"
"spectrum;スペクトル、範囲、多彩である"
"dictatorship;独裁"
全文
00:00
Crimmmmmme and punishment.
00:04
It's more than just a boring book that I think everybody should read.
00:07
It’s also the topic of today’s video.
00:09
Because while many people know something about Japanese crime, specifically that its rates are low,
00:14
very few know anything about its punishment.
00:16
And Japanese punishment is among the harshest and most inescapable on the entire planet.
00:22
Their prisons are notoriously draconian.
00:25
And if you ever end up in their court system, there is near a one hundred percent change
00:29
that you are going to be locked up.
00:31
Which means one of two things: Either their penal system is perfect,
00:37
or they’re locking up a lot of innocent people.
00:48
If you find yourself before a Japanese criminal court, there’s upwards of a 99.98% chance
00:54
that you’re going to be convicted.
00:56
Those are higher numbers than places where justice is a farce.
01:00
That's higher than Saudi Arabia.
01:01
That's higher than China.
01:03
Even Stalinist Russia didn’t put up those of numbers.
01:06
To put it simply, if their legal system puts you before a judge, you’re going to be found guilty.
01:11
But if you read interviews with certain members of the Japanese court, chances are
01:15
you’ll walk away thinking they hadn’t locked up a single innocent person in their entire careers.
01:20
To quote transcripts I read preparing this piece, the legal system here claims
01:24
that they would rather see a thousand guilty go free than a single innocent man locked up.
01:28
According to them, the way they’ve been able to achieve these astronomically high numbers
01:33
is because Japanese prosecutors don’t move forward until they’re absolutely certain
01:37
that they can obtain a conviction.
01:39
And although it’s obviously propaganda at its core, there is some truth in that statement.
01:44
In comparison to a nation like Britain, for example, which sees conviction rates in the 70th percentiles,
01:49
there is a much higher burden of proof required before they go to the courts.
01:53
To save time and embarrassment, prosecutors in Japan tend to be very wary about
01:57
trying cases that might end in acquittal.
01:59
Naturally, nobody here wants to lose face.
02:02
But conversely, this means that they are less likely to check their facts when they do.
02:08
As the theory goes, if the prosecution is only going to bring cases they’re sure of,
02:13
then they can be sure of the cases that they bring.
02:16
In many ways it’s a rubber stamp from cop to cell.
02:19
But even that can't quite explain these numbers.
02:21
There are many countries on earth that don't bring forward cases that they are not comfortable with.
02:26
And there is many places on earth where judges overtrust their prosecution.
02:30
So there has to be another reason for it.
02:33
To fill the gap, the answer must lie in culture.
02:36
In Japan, like few places on earth, loyalty reigns supreme.
02:41
The imperial system destroyed by an American-written constitution may no longer be law,
02:46
but it never truly left society.
02:49
In Japan today, it would not be hard to argue that one’s loyalty, above all, is to one’s group.
02:55
Often one’s job.
02:57
To those in the public sector, that means a fairly direct, Confucian subservience to the state.
03:02
Not in a robotic sense, but in a social one.
03:05
In such a system, the state being wrong is akin to sacrilege.
03:09
If someone is convicted, it isn’t just the legal system that presumes them as guilty.
03:13
Everyone does.
03:14
Once stained, forever stained.
03:17
Getting out, even with evidence to show genuine innocence, is virtually impossible.
03:22
What judge wants to stand up and call the state wrong?
03:25
The prosecutors wrong?
03:26
Their own group wrong?
03:29
In 2007, a judge came forward to express regret about sentencing a man to die all the way back in 1968.
03:37
He knew he was innocent at the time, but he locked him up anyway.
03:42
He said that he was feeling pressured.
03:44
Not external pressure.
03:46
Nobody was breathing down his neck about it.
03:48
He felt it all internally.
03:50
The two other judges on the case had said he was guilty, and for him to disagree was shameful.
03:56
So despite the fact that he had written a 360 page document detailing the innocence of a man
04:02
he would give the death penalty, he did it anyway.
04:06
And then, shortly after, in true Japanese fashion, he quietly resigned.
04:11
It was shameful to him to have committed this man to death, knowing full well he was innocent,
04:15
and he did not want to continue with that group that forced him to do it.
04:18
Even if that force was internal.
04:21
But what I find interesting is what he didn’t do.
04:23
What he didn’t do, what he never dared to do, was call him innocent out loud.
04:28
Because the system had said he was guilty.
04:30
And even when you know it’s wrong, you do not question the system.
04:35
As the death penalty in Japan is a strange story all its own, the man he sentenced to death row
04:39
was still on it for 40 years later.
04:42
Eventually, in an extremely rare turn of events, the dedicated work of a single activist found him freed.
04:49
His sister.
04:50
The only one who willing to speak up for him in the face of such social pressure.
04:55
The judge who had sentenced him, then in his 70’s, wished to apologize for the horrors
05:00
that he had knowingly inflicted.
05:02
But it was too late.
05:04
By the time he was released, decades of draconian prison life had left his brain so addled
05:10
that he couldn't even to comprehend the tearful apology.
05:14
The damage had been done.
05:16
Justice had been served.
05:19
Yet even now, having been acquitted and found innocent, released from prison
05:23
and nearly vegetative in his capacity, the state continues to try to find him guilty.
05:29
They haven’t given up on their man, because the system cannot be wrong.
05:33
You don’t get 99.98% conviction rate letting people walk.
05:37
Even if they're innocent.
05:39
This is an all too common story here.
05:42
It’s just one people rarely mention.
05:44
Many people around the world praise Japan, and rightly so, for the successes that they’ve had.
05:49
Faith in their system has led to a society with a plethora of achievements.
05:53
It is a nation of hard workers, it sports a strong economy and extremely low rates of social unrest.
05:59
Homeless are organized and slums are clean.
06:02
Crime is low.
06:03
The economy aims towards equality and worker rights, at least on paper,
06:07
and it has long since been held in international esteem.
06:11
But while we’re quick to laud, we shouldn’t also be overlooking the negatives.
06:15
They may be less evident to the casual viewer, but they’re certainly there.
06:19
The government has been a virtual one-party system since the Second World War.
06:23
One of the few times the opposition took power was this decade, and even then for only three years
06:28
with little to no changes to any actual policy.
06:31
Japan’s suicide rate is, and has been for a very long time, among the highest recorded on the planet.
06:37
People’s self-reported rates of misery and stress rival those of any system, anywhere, ever.
06:44
Freedom on paper does not equate to freedom in practice, and it's in statistics like their conviction rate
06:49
that we see that the best.
06:51
I’m sure that many viewers will still be holding on to the idea that this legal system is
06:55
somehow directly related to the low crime rates of Japan.
06:59
But there’s simply no evidence to suggest that.
07:01
If anything, the system produces the opposite.
07:04
Most crimes brought before the state never make it to court.
07:07
Those that do are often deferred perpetually to avoid a statement of innocence.
07:11
Criminals are much more capable of getting away with their crimes here,
07:15
because they know that justice will only be attempted if the prosecutors are certain to win.
07:20
Because of that, Japan’s recidivism rate is not one to be envied.
07:24
Once a criminal, it seems, always a criminal.
07:28
The crime rates of Japan are definitely lower than many other places on earth.
07:33
Even being underreported as they are.
07:35
But that’s not because their conviction rate is obscene.
07:38
They simply both stem from the same source.
07:41
Duty to the state.
07:42
Loyalty to one’s group.
07:44
And an incredibly strong desire to save face.
07:47
I’m not saying that my system is better.
07:50
I’m not even saying that any system is better.
07:52
They’re all just choices on a spectrum.
07:54
But what I am saying is that Japan is almost certainly, and in a sense willingly locking up
08:00
innocent men and women to a degree that would shock any other nation.
08:03
Including the dictatorships.
08:06
And the craziest part to me is that they’re not doing it as a mistake.
08:11
They’re doing it because it’s their job.
08:14
This is Rare Earth.
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