Japanese officials commonly claim that their country retains and uses capital punishment because it deters homicide. Although this claim is contested, few empirical studies have been done to assess the empirical reality. This paper uses data not previously available (monthly homicide statistics obtained from Japan’s National Police Agency) to examine whether Japan’s death penalty deters homicide or robbery-homicide. Using vector autoregression models, it concludes that neither death sentences nor executions deter homicide or robbery-homicide.
AdeyemiAA (1987) Death penalty: Criminological perspectives – The Nigerian situation. Revue Internationale de Droit Penal58: 485–502.
2.
AkibaH (1991) The deterrent effect reconsidered: The minimum time approach. Journal of Socio-Economics (Journal of Behavioral Economics). 20(2181–192.
3.
AkibaH (1993) Hanzai no Keizaigaku, Tokyo: Taga Shuppan.
4.
Amnesty International (2013) Not making us safer: Crime, public safety, and the death penalty. October 10: 1–31. ACT 51/002/2013.
5.
BannerS (2002) The Death Penalty: An American History, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
6.
BerkR (2005) New claims about executions and general deterrence: Déjà Vu all over again?Journal of Empirical Legal Studies2(2): 303–330.
7.
BrandtPTKovandzicTV (2015) Messing up Texas? A reanalysis of the effects of executions on homicides. PLoS ONE10(9): e0138143.
8.
Brasor P (2017) Media starts to focus on Japan’s aging prison population. Japan Times, January 28.
9.
Brief of Amici Curiae Empirical Scholars Concerning Deterrence and the Death Penalty in Support of Petitioner/Appellee. 2015. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Ernest Dewayne Jones v. Ron Davis. Submitted by Coleman, Balogh & Scott LLP, Attorneys for Amici Curiae Empirical Scholars Philip J. Cook, John J. Donohue, Jeffrey Fagan, Andrew Gelman, Richard Lempert, Richard Rosenfeld, and Franklin E. Zimring. March 7, pp.1–31.
10.
BrintonMC (2003) Fact-rich, data-poor: Japan as sociologists’ heaven and hell. In: BestorTCSteinhoffPGBestorVL (eds) Doing Fieldwork in Japan, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, pp. 195–213.
11.
Chen D (2011) The deterrent effect of the death penalty? Evidence from British commutations during World War I. SSRN Electronic Journal September: 1–41.
12.
ChenJChoiYCMoriKet al. (2012) Recession, unemployment, and suicide in Japan. Japan Labor Review9(2): 75–92.
13.
Cooper A and Smith EL (2011) Homicide trends in the United States, 1980–2008. U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics. November, NCJ 236018, pp.1–36.
DonohueJWolfersJ (2006) Uses and abuses of empirical evidence in the death penalty debate. Stanford Law Review58: 791–846.
16.
DonohueJWolfersJ (2009) Estimating the impact of the death penalty on murder. American Law and Economics Review11(2): 249–309.
17.
DonohueJJ (2016) Empirical analysis and the fate of capital punishment. Duke Journal of Constitutional Law and Public Policy11: 51–106.
18.
EhrlichI (1975a) The deterrent effect of capital punishment: A question of life and death. American Economic Review65(3): 397–417.
19.
EhrlichI (1975b) Deterrence: Evidence and inference. Yale Law Journal85(2): 209–227.
20.
FaganJ (2006) Death and deterrence redux: Science, law, and causal reasoning on capital punishment (Walter Reckless Memorial Lecture). Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law4: 255–320.
21.
FaganJWestV (2009) Death and deterrence redux: Science, law and causal reasoning on capital punishment. In: LanierCSBowersWJAckerJR (eds) The Future of America’s Death Penalty: An Agenda for the Next Generation of Capital Punishment Research, Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, pp. 311–358.
22.
FaganJZimringFEGellerA (2006) Capital punishment and capital murder: market share and the deterrent effects of the death penalty. Texas Law Review84: 1803–1868.
23.
Fisher M (2012) A land without guns: How Japan has virtually eliminated shooting deaths. The Atlantic, July 23.
24.
GarlandD (2010) Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
25.
GerritzenBCKirchgassnerG (2016) Facts or ideology: What determines the results of econometric estimates of the deterrent effect of the death penalty? A meta-analysis. Open Journal of Social Sciences4(6): 178–202.
GottfredsonMRHirschiT (1990) A General Theory of Crime, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
28.
GreenbergDFAgozinoB (2011) Executions, imprisonment and crime in Trinidad and Tobago. Br J Criminol52(1): 113–140.
29.
Hakusho H (1991–2012) Research and Training Institute of the Japanese Ministry of Justice. Tokyo: Nikkei Printing.
30.
Hamai K (ed.) (2006) Hanzai Tokei Nyumon. Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha.
31.
HasegawaM (2005) Homicide by men in Japan, and its relationship to age, resources, and risk taking. Evolution and Human Behavior26: 332–343.
32.
HoodRHoyleC (2015) The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective, 5th ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
33.
Japan Times (2015) Death row inmate seeking retrial over 1961 wine-poisoning murders dies at 89. October 4.
34.
JiangSPilotRSaitoT (2010) Why Japanese support the death penalty. International Criminal Justice Review20(3): 302–316.
35.
JohnsonDT (2002) The Japanese Way of Justice: Prosecuting Crime in Japan, New York: Oxford University Press.
36.
JohnsonDT (2006a) Where the state kills in secret: Capital punishment in Japan. Punishment & Society8(3): 251–286.
37.
JohnsonDT (2006b) The vanishing killer: Japan’s postwar homicide decline. Social Science Japan Journal9(1): 73–90.
38.
JohnsonDT (2008) The homicide drop in postwar Japan. Homicide Studies12(1): 146–160.
39.
JohnsonDT (2011) American capital punishment in comparative perspective. Law & Social Inquiry36(4): 1033–1061.
40.
JohnsonDT (2013) Progress and problems in Japanese capital punishment. In: HoodRDevaS (eds) Confronting Capital Punishment in Asia: Human Rights, Politics, and Public Opinion, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 168–184.
41.
JohnsonDT (2016) Retention and reform in Japanese capital punishment. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform49(4): 853–889.
42.
JohnsonDTZimringFE (2009) The Next Frontier: National Development, Political Change, and the Death Penalty in Asia, New York: Oxford University Press.
43.
Kawai M and Takagi S (2009) Why was Japan hit so hard by the global financial crisis? ADBI Working Paper Series, No. 153: 1–15.
44.
KitaMJohnsonDT (2014) Framing capital punishment in Japan: Avoidance, ambivalence, and atonement. Asian Journal of Criminology9(3): 221–240.
45.
KovandzicTVVieraitisLMBootsDP (2009) Does the death penalty save lives?Criminology & Public Policy8(4): 803–843.
46.
LaFreeG (1998) Losing Legitimacy: Street Crime and the Decline of Social Institutions in America, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
47.
LandKCTeskeRHCJrZhengH (2009) The short-term effects of executions on homicides: deterrence, displacement, or both?Criminology47(4): 1009–1044.
48.
LeonardsenD (2004) Japan as a Low-Crime Nation, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
49.
LeonardsenD (2010) Crime in Japan: Paradise Lost?, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
50.
Liptak A (2007) Does the death penalty save lives? A new debate. New York Times November 18.
51.
LordCGRossLLepperMR (1979) Biased assimilation and attitude polarization: The effects of prior theories on subsequently considered evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology37(11): 2098–2109.
52.
MasudaM (2009) Fukuda kun o Koroshite Nani ni Naru Ka: Hikari shi Boshi Satusgai Jiken no Kansei, Tokyo: Inshidentsu.
53.
MatsumuraRTakeuchiK (1990) Shikei wa Hanzai o Yokushi Suru no ka: Arikku no Bunsetsu no Nihon e noTekiyo no Kokoromi. Jurisuto959: 103–107.
54.
MiyazawaS (1991) Ho no Yokushiryoku. In: TomioKKoyuT (eds) Ho no Kodo Kagaku, Tokyo: Fukumura Shuppan, pp. 284–302.
55.
MiyazawaS (2008) The politics of increasing punitiveness and the rising populism in Japanese criminal justice policy. Punishment & Society10(1): 47–77.
56.
Mori D (2016) Nihon no Shikei ni kansuru Futatsu no Keiryo Bunsetsu no Saikento. Paper presented at the meeting of the Japanese Law and Economics Association, November 5, 2016, pp.1–26.
57.
MuramatsuK (2016) Nihon ni okeru Shikei no Kinnen no Doko. Komazawa Daigaku Keizaigakuronshu47(3): 1–12.
58.
NaginDS (2012) Scientific evidence and public policy. The Criminologist37(6): 1, 3–6.
National Research Council (1978) Deterrence and Incapacitation: Estimating the Effects of Criminal Sanctions on Crime Rates. Panel on Research on Deterrent and Incapacitative Effects, edited by Blumstein A, Cohen J, and Nagin DS. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
61.
National Research Council (2012) Deterrence and the Death Penalty. Committee on Deterrence and the Death Penalty, edited by Nagin DS and Pepper JV. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
62.
OkaT (2009) Juvenile crime and punishment: Evidence from Japan. Applied Economics41(24): 3103–3115.
63.
Otake F and Kamei O (2000) Shonen Hanzai to Rodo Ichiba: Jikokuretsu oyobi Todofukenbetsu Paneru Bunsetsu. Nihon Keizai Kenkyu 40.
64.
Park W-K (2006) Trends in Crime Rates in Postwar Japan: A Structural Perspective. Law and Political Science Series of the University of Kitakyushu. Shinzansha.
RadeletML (2016) The incremental retributive impact of a death sentence over life without parole. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform49(4): 795–815.
67.
RadeletMLAkersRL (1996) Deterrence and the death penalty: The views of the experts. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology87(1): 1–16.
68.
RadeletMLLacockTL (2009) Do executions lower homicide rates? The views of leading criminologists. Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology99(2): 489–508.
69.
SaccoVF (1995) Media constructions of crime. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science539(1): 141–154.
70.
Sakamoto A, Sekiguchi K, Shinkyu A, et al. (2001). Does the media coverage of capital punishment have a deterrence effect on the occurrence of brutal crime? An analysis of the Japanese Time-Series Data from 1959–1990. Ochanomizu University, Tokyo (May 12), pp.1–21.
71.
SatoM (2014) The Death Penalty in Japan: Will the Public Tolerate Abolition?, Stuttgart: Springer VS.
72.
SchmidtP (2002) Capital Punishment in Japan, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
73.
Sellin T (1951) The death penalty and the problem of deterrence in Great Britain. In: Minutes of Evidence, Taken Before the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, Thirtieth Day, 1 February 1951. London: HMSO.
74.
SellinT (2013) The Penalty of Death, Los Angeles: Sage (originally published in 1980).
75.
ShepherdJM (2005) Deterrence versus brutalization: Capital punishment’s differing impacts among states. Michigan Law Review104(2): 203–255.
76.
StolzenbergLD’AlessioSJ (2004) Capital punishment, execution publicity, and murder in Houston, Texas. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology94(2): 351–379.
77.
SunsteinCVermeuleA (2005) Is capital punishment morally required? Acts, omissions, and life-life tradeoffs. Stanford Law Review58(3): 703–750.
78.
Sunstein C and Wolfers J (2008) A death penalty puzzle. Washington Post, June 30.
79.
Takeda M (2014) Kensatsu wa Taisho Jiken o Shincho ni Kiso: Saibanin Kohosha Jitairitsu, 60% Koeru: Saibanin Seido Kaishi kara 5nen. Journalism, September: 136–143.
80.
Temkin M (2015) The great divergence: The death penalty in the United States and the failure of abolition in transatlantic perspective. Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Research Working Paper Series. July: 1–65.
81.
The Death Penalty Project (2013) The Death Penalty in Japan: A Report on Japan’s Legal Obligations Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and an Assessment of Public Attitudes to Capital Punishment, London: The Death Penalty Project, pp. 1–56.
82.
Trefil JS (1978) A consumer’s guide to pseudoscience. Saturday Review 5 (April 28), p.21.
83.
UnneverJ (2010) Global support for the death penalty. Punishment & Society12(4): 463–484.
84.
WalkerS (2014) Sense and Nonsense about Crime, Drugs, and Communities, 8th ed. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning.
85.
ZimringFE (2003) The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment, New York: Oxford University Press.
86.
ZimringFE (2008) Criminology and its discontents: The American Society of Criminology 2007 Sutherland address. Criminology46(2): 255–266.
87.
ZimringFE (2013) Foreword. In: SellinT (ed.) The Penalty of Death, Los Angeles: Sage.
88.
ZimringFEFaganJJohnsonDT (2010) Executions, deterrence, and homicide: A tale of two cities. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies7(1): 1–29.
89.
ZimringFEHawkinsGJ (1973) Deterrence: The legal threat in crime control, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
