Over 80% of Japanese say death penalty system is 'unavoidable'

The vast majority of the public continues to endorse the country's death penalty system, according to a recent government survey.

In the Cabinet Office's survey of 1,815 people between October and December, 83.1% said that the system is “unavoidable.”

The percentage of respondents giving that answer exceeded 80% for the fifth consecutive time.

When asked about whether they’d support abolishing the death penalty in the future if “circumstances change,” 34.4% of the 1,508 respondents who said the death penalty system is “unavoidable” answered in favor.

The survey, which is conducted every five years, also found that 16.5% of respondents believe the death penalty should be abolished, compared with 9% in the previous edition.

The Cabinet Office did not compare the latest results with past editions, since the survey method changed from in-person interviews to mailed-in responses following the pandemic.

"Misleading"

Although the latest poll suggests that the death penalty is still widely accepted, Japan’s largest attorneys group said last year that it is misleading to use the survey as a basis to say that over 80% of people support the death penalty.

The Japan Federation of Bar Associations has repeatedly said that the structure and design of the survey is problematic.

“This structure lumps together respondents who selected ‘the death penalty is unavoidable’ despite the diversity of opinions within this group,” the federation said in a petition statement in January 2024.

“As a result, the interpretation that ‘80% of the public supports the death penalty system’ has taken on a life of its own and is now being used as justification for maintaining the death penalty.”

The government has relied heavily on the survey to back up its stance on the death penalty. Current and former justice ministers have repeatedly stated it is not appropriate to abolish the penalty, as the majority of the public holds that it is “unavoidable” in case of extremely heinous and atrocious crimes.

A Justice Ministry official overseeing criminal affairs said the survey is intended to “gauge public opinion on whether the death penalty should be completely abolished as a legal institution,” and that the ministry believes criticisms that the response options are leading or manipulative are unfounded.

Based on a Japan Times calculation using a method that the federation has used in the past to contend that support for abolition is in fact higher, the latest survey shows 45% of all respondents were in favor of abolishing the death penalty in the future, while 53% were against that. This is based on adding up those who said the death penalty should be abolished and respondents who said it's unavoidable for now but might be in favor of its abolition in the future.

Abolition vs. LWOP

The latest survey also asked all respondents whether they’d support abolishing the death penalty if lifetime imprisonment without parole — which currently doesn’t exist in Japan — is introduced; 37.5% answered yes, while 61.8% said no.

In addition, among the 300 respondents who said the death penalty should be abolished, 71% said this is because it leaves no room for correction if there were problems with the trial. In the 2019 survey, 50.7% gave the same response.

There are five cases in Japan's postwar history in which a person whose death penalty had been finalized was found innocent in a retrial.

The most recent case happened two weeks before the latest survey took place, when a Shizuoka court in late September ruled ex-boxer Iwao Hakamada not guilty in a 1966 murder case.

There were 106 inmates awaiting execution in Japan at the end of 2023. The most recent execution took place in July 2022.

Source: Japan Today, Francis Tang, February 21, 2025

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