Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the social and emotional costs of providing social support to political prisoners in Japan. Using data from long-term fieldwork (participant observation and interviews), it focuses both on interactions with prisoners and on the influence of the supporter's broader social milieu.

Paper long abstract:

One side effect of the escalating protests of the late 1960s and early 1970s was the arrest and prosecution of several thousand university students for both misdemeanors and felonies. The students were charged with ordinary criminal offenses, which they had committed for political reasons. While some family members rejected their imprisoned kin, other family members, personal friends, and political sympathizers provided support to them, often as a form of social movement activity. In addition to providing immediate support to counter the confession pressures of interrogation, they helped defendants survive the severe isolation of unconvicted detention, supported them through long trials, and then continued to maintain contact through lengthy prison sentences.

This paper examines the social and emotional costs of providing social support to political prisoners in Japan. It encompasses the whole range of people around the imprisoned students, including close kin who rejected the prisoner because the social and emotional costs were too high to bear. The study documents some researcher-informant interactions that revealed these emotional dimensions, and then pursues them through additional forms of evidence. It analyzes two different sets of social interactions.

First, the emotional dynamic of the relationship of supporters with prisoners changes over time. Because of the severe isolation of the prisoners, whose only outside contact may be intermittent communication and visits with one person, the loyal supporter eventually becomes the target of the frustration and anger of the prisoner. Supporters may suffer from caregiver burnout and withdraw from the relationship or find excuses to avoid it. Conversely, continuing unconditional support from someone who listens without judging may provide space for the prisoner to entertain doubts and disengage from the movement.

Second, the relation of potential supporters with their broader social milieu may either reinforce the commitment to provide social support as a political act, or deter a parent from maintaining any relationship at all with an imprisoned child. In some cases the stigma of the child's politically-motivated crime causes the breakup of a sibling's marriage, and it is this broader damage to the family that the parent cannot forgive.