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Comment by spinach | Hacker News Reader

If they cared about women they would find lots of crime. Particularly on trains, so many women get groped and harassed.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/22/national/media-...

Why would you ever take on such a case? A matter were testimony stands against testimony? That would totally ruin your wonderful 99% conviction rate [0]. If a victim comes to you to report something like that, you better get her out asap by whatever means necessary. Just make sure you're not become part of the crime stats yourself... though that should be hard for you thanks to the necessary inside knowledge & contacts.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...

Anecdata: a female friend of mine was beaten up by her boyfriend (who was a pimp at a "soapy") and sent me pics of the bruises. I told her to go to the police. She said they would do nothing, something about her dad having a bad reputation (I didn't fully understand her Japanese text messages). I said go anyway and at least try, she's got clear evidence.

She did. They did nothing. And I've got several other similar stories from other women I've known. There is a LOT of unreported domestic violence and sexual assault in Japan.

The conviction rate is high because prosecutors have discretion over which cases to take to court, and there is no jury. The outcome of a bench trial is often predictable, and prosecutors will only take to trial cases they believe will succeed.

A large proportion of prosecutions in Japan rely on confessions, often obtained by duress. Even if only a small number of perpetrators (or innocent suspects) confess, taking only those cases to trail keeps the conviction rate high. The rate at which crimes are solved is somewhat lower -- less than 30% according to the article.

east asian countries have some of the lowest crime rates in general and some of the lowest crime rates when it comes to crimes committed against the opposite sex. you can correlate this with non-east asian countries by comparing the statistics of crimes in countries with lax immigration policies, south korea, vs countries with much stricter ones like Japan.

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Crime/Rape-r... us has 27 rapes out of 100k citizens vs 13.5 in south korea vs only 1 in japan. that 13.5 is the highest rate among east asian countries. but south korea has the largest foreign population as a percentage of their population out of all the east asian countries. so this stereotype being pushed that east asia countries "hides" their crimes towards females is clearly not true.

these anecdotal comments you see on the internet may be leaving out the most important detail. are the perpetrators even a native east asian? putting a non-east asian in east asia does not make that person stop committing crimes.

Aren't men greater victims of violent crimes?

I couldn't find a source for Japan, but the sources in a quick web search seemed to indicate so, generally based on government statistics: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=men+women+violent+crime+victim+rat...

Worldwide, men are victimized at much higher rates, especially when the perpetrator is a stranger. But men also commit the vast majority of violent crimes. Most of these crimes end up being men hurting other men. Of particular interest is homicide statistics...

>A 2013 global study on homicide by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that males accounted for about 96 percent of all homicide perpetrators worldwide.

The wiki speculates that this could be due to biological differences, such as men being much more willing to engage in risky behavior.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime

Why does it matter who is hurting who? Just protect those who are being hurt.

In terms of evaluating police effectiveness it could matter in some cases.

For example, the police probably can't do much to protect one drug dealer from another as both drug dealers are presumably trying to avoid the police (and the decision to legalise drugs is a political one not a police one).

That's the same argument used by conservatives to discount black on black crime. If it doesn't hold water there, it doesn't hold any here.

The parent isn’t discounting male on male crime, in fact quite the opposite. He was responding to a comment about maybe men need more protection than women.

So your analogy to the police discounting black on black crime isn’t correct.

I'm not discounting male on male crime. The comment was supposed to be a confirmation of the parent's question. The other stuff came out because I learned it while reading that wiki and thought it was interesting, not because I think it's okay to ignore violence against men. (But I understand how it sounds like an implied "they deserve it" argument)

Yeah... intrinsic group characteristics are also used in many arguments you might find less righteous.

Then shouldn't you look at whether the act violence involves two people of criminal background instead of looking at their gender?

Just because someone is subjected to violence from someone who shares some group characteristics doesn't mean it's not worth investigating or that he or she is somehow responsible for this violence.

A similar logic could be applied to black men on black men violence, to cite other answer that you got.

To push it further I what stops us from using the same reasoning to say that it's not worth investigating domestic violence in the case of same-race couple? In the end it's just whites hurting whites.

Since when is "harassing" someone a crime?

I believe they’re referring to Chikan which is estimated to have happened to 2/3 of women who ride the train in Japan and the act violates several Japanese laws.

It is when the harassment is of sexual nature.

Actually all harassment is a crime in the US. Just insulting people and saying lewd things isn’t harassment, though.

I don't think this is true. There are 50 states, each with different laws and definitions of acts and crimes. I am not aware of any federal anti-harassment laws except for those governing workplaces, and even those do not consider all harassment to be illegal.

To lighten the mood a little bit: https://youtu.be/kk6DGHWIl7A?t=741

RIP Patrice O'Neal.

Are you serious? Groping someone on a train is sexual assault

Perhaps they don't complain to the police because they are stoic and also prefer maximizing peace and order in their society rather than selfishly clutching their pearls over inconsequential annoyances. Japanese tend to have an intuitive understanding that sending an easily tolerated creep to jail will cause damage to everyone in his life including his employer and his family. They lack the impulsive blind urge for life-destroying revenge which you incorrectly believe everyone naturally possesses. Their culture is different but you seem hesitant to respect or recognize that. Japan Times is also widely considered by actual Japanese people to be racist anti-Japanese propaganda meant to confuse non-Japanese people into eventually insisting on various forms of heavy-handed intervention in their country. The article is written by a no-name pop music blogger and based entirely on his personal spin on a small handful of random tweets. It is probably mostly false.

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