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- Convenor:
-
Stephanie Osawa
(University of Duesseldorf, Germany)
Send message to Convenor
- Chair:
-
Stephanie Osawa
(University of Duesseldorf, Germany)
- Section:
- Anthropology and Sociology
- Sessions:
- Thursday 26 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
This panel explores crime in Japan from the perspective of offenders. Based on interviews with people who violate(d) the law, it addresses the question of how offenders perceive and interpret their own behaviour.
Long Abstract:
Crime in Japan is a topic of considerable interest in public and academic discourses, both in Japan and internationally. Juvenile justice and social control practices are of great concern to international crime research, but Comparative Criminology in particular focuses on the causes of the remarkably low crime rates in Japan, specifically the question of why fewer people misbehave in so called "low-crime-nation Japan" (Leonardsen 2002). Many of these Western studies are quantitative in nature and crucial to our understanding of crime in general, yet scholarship on crime in Japan remains very much one-sided, with the vast majority of studies taking a quantitative and etiological approach. One question that has rarely been asked in academic discourses on crime in Japan is how offenders themselves perceive and interpret their own behaviour.
According to Narrative Criminology, the stories that offenders tell about their own misconduct are crucial for understanding crime. Not only do they reveal contexts, details, and facts about their offences and offending, which are often used in mainstream criminology to analyse the causes of crime in greater detail, but—more importantly—the stories themselves are influential in "instigat-ing, sustaining or affecting desistance from harmful action" (Presser/Sandberg 2015: 1). The per-ceptions and understandings that offenders have of themselves and their (mis)behaviour are therefore central elements of the processes that lead into and out of crime; analysing offenders' storytelling thus represents an important approach to comprehending crime. Although narrative criminology is still considered as of secondary importance to the predominantly quantitative research on crime in Japan, it nonetheless promises new and "refreshing" insights into crime processes in this country.
With this in mind, this panel explores crime from the point of view of offenders themselves. Based on interviews with people who violate(d) the law, it discusses issues of self-interpretation, rule-definition, and societal influences. Following suggestions from Jianghong Liu (2009) and the Asian Criminological Paradigm to more actively engage in intercultural criminological comparisons, two of the papers will approach the topic by comparing Japan with Germany and Scotland respectively, while one paper will focus on Japan alone.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 26 August, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This presentation focuses on the views of young offenders in Japan and Scotland about why they start and stop offending and their needs in the transition to adulthood. It places particular emphasis on their need for recognition and belonging, which can both encourage and discourage crime.
Paper long abstract:
Japan is an anomaly in international criminology circles, given its remarkably low and stable crime rate compared with countries in the West, and yet Japan is highly populated, advanced and rapidly changing, factors which are usually associated with problematic crime rates.
This presentation draws on qualitative research conducted with young offenders in Japan and Scotland, two contrasting countries in terms of youth crime. Both sets of interviews focused on young people's experiences of starting offending (onset) and stopping offending (desistance) during the transition to adulthood - namely, from the teenage years until their late twenties/early thirties. Unlike research studies of offending in the West, offenders in Japan are not commonly asked for their views on what causes, exacerbates and reduces offending behaviour. Ministry of Justice White Papers on youth offending, for example, tend only to include limited surveys on the effectiveness of interventions aimed at young people's overt offending behaviour. The current research went much further into the lifestyles, attitudes and experiences of 45 young people aged 16-33 in Japan and 40 young people aged 18-30 in Scotland, all of whom had spent much of their childhood and youth involved in offending and the criminal and youth justice systems.
The presentation thus offers a deeper insight into the complex narratives of young offenders in Japan and Scotland about why they start and stop offending. It focuses primarily on their views and experiences of interactions with others, both within their communities and within the Criminal Justice system. The presentation draws on recent theoretical developments on the concept of recognition within philosophical and political theory to examine the needs of these young people for love, respect and esteem within the transition to adulthood: a need to belong and to be recognised which takes them both into and out of an offending lifestyle.
Paper short abstract:
Cultural and societal contexts shape definitions and perceptions of anti-normative behaviour. From an interactionist, comparative and qualitative point of view, we examine those definition processes and explore how deviant youths in Japan and Germany perceive their own misconduct.
Paper long abstract:
There seems to be little in common between deviance in Japan and in Germany. Well-known stereotypes suggest differing dispositions towards non-conforming behaviour: while Japanese juveniles are often depicted as group-oriented and disciplined, and thus less willing to engage in rule-breaking behaviour, their German counterparts are said to be individualistic, which is believed to make them less reluctant to break social rules. However, the issue is not as simple as it seems, with evidence of excessive rule-breaking in Japanese schools and of German youths with a high tendency to conform to social norms proving the complexity of social realities and the simplistic nature of cultural stereotypes.
In Criminology it is agreed that cultural and societal contexts have a great impact on crime, particularly in terms of shaping definitions and perceptions of norms, deviance, and (im)proper behaviour. However, the interactionist approach to crime points to the variability and flexibility of definitions of crime—even within certain social and cultural settings—as it understands definitions of crime as the result of social processes, and therefore shaped by individual interpretations (Becker 1981).
Studies that deal with these issues and take a closer look at definition processes are rare, especially when it comes to subjective, individual perceptions and intercultural comparisons. In our paper we therefore focus on individual perceptions of misconduct and analyse the processes that lead to the interpretation of certain behaviours as problematic. Inspired by Narrative Criminology (Presser/Sandberg 2015), and based on interviews with deviant Japanese and German middle school students, we explore (1) how deviant youths themselves interpret their own behaviour, and (2) which rules and normative regulations shape their interpretations.
Our results suggest that in both our German and Japanese samples, school rules seem to be of significance for interpreting and judging (one's own) actions. However, young people still develop their own normative standards that are crucial for their understanding of proper and improper behaviour. In sum, we identify intra- and intercultural differences and commonalities that demonstrate the relevance of international comparisons for understanding crime.
Paper short abstract:
Recently, Japan has been tackling the increase in crimes committed by the seniors. This research focuses on the narratives of three elderly female ex-offenders, who began their criminal career after 65 and it aims to elucidate how they reconstruct their crime spree, imprisonment, and reintegration.
Paper long abstract:
Recently, the significant increase in crimes committed by seniors has begun to receive attention in Japan. The rate of crime committed by women over the age of 65 reached its peak in 2015, almost five times higher than the numbers in 1992, according to the annual report published by the Justice Ministry (2019). Although Japanese officials justify this tendency with the aging society, the same trend is not present in other rapidly aging countries such as Germany, where the official elderly crime rate is four times lower in comparison. Previous studies in this field in Japan have been predominantly quantitative studies focusing on male offenders and fail to include the issue from the offenders' perspective. This study focuses on the narratives of three elderly female ex-offenders on probation, who began their criminal career (petty crime) after the age of 65. This research attempts to shed light on how they perceive and reinterpret their encounter of the crime spree, imprisonment, as well as their reintegration process back to society.
Despite the argument that several types of offenses (e.g., prostitution and petty crime) are historically more common among female offenders, it is undeniable that crime has a severe stigmatizing effect for women. Previous studies have repeatedly shown that women tend to take a passive approach and describe themselves in terms of normative femininity, while they are reflecting and reconstructing their crime, even for brutal murder charges. This study established that the participants indeed chose conforming narratives whilst reconstructing their stories of crime spree and reintegration. Moreover, their stories revealed insights on the various obstacles of daily life many senior women are facing in Japan, such as poverty, social insecurity, absence of care, and isolation.