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Comment by fiblye | Hacker News Reader

It's strange how Japan gets so much attention for this. It's about the same in every country.

According to Wikipedia:

>In Canada, the national conviction rate is about 97%. This does not include cases in which the charges are dropped, which comprise about one-third of criminal cases. Absent Quebec, the province with the lowest conviction rate, the figure is 99%.

If a country has a low conviction rate, it could be because cops are arresting lots of innocent people. It could be because courts are being bribed and letting people go. High conviction rates can mean anything from police only arresting people when they know a person is guilty, to them picking up anyone off the street and throwing them away without a fair trial. Percentage alone, generally, isn't something worth looking into.

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Seriously?

The linked audio is only 9 minutes long, and it addresses this exact point. The Wikipedia figure for Canada is wrong. The straight acquittal rate is ~3%, but the other 97% are not convictions, only about 60% are.

They also interview a professor who authored a book on the Japanese justice system who explains why the conviction rate is so high. It turns out we can answer questions like this without relying on uninformed guesses by HN commenters. Amazing.

> The Wikipedia figure for Canada is wrong. The straight acquittal rate is ~3%, but the other 97% are not convictions, only about 60% are.

I've observed what happens in Australia (wasn't me personally, but someone I know). Charged with a crime for which the evidence was rather weak/debatable. His family could afford a good barrister and expert witnesses. As soon as the defence expert witness finishes demolishing the prosecution's case from the witness stand, the prosecution move for the case to be dismissed.

It was very obvious that if he had been a poor person, whose family couldn't afford to pay many $10,000s on good lawyers and expert witnesses, the prosecution would have won the case. But I think that's their technique. Charge lots of people, some of whom are well-resourced enough to cast doubt on the prosecution's case, others are not. Fold against the former, win against the later. So long as they get enough of the later and not too much of the former, pat themselves on the back for meeting their targets.

> The Wikipedia figure for Canada is wrong. The straight acquittal rate is ~3%, but the other 97% are not convictions, only about 60% are.

The wikipedia article isn't really wrong. Only 60% of the cases go before a jury. The conviction rate for cases that get to the jury around the 95% rate.

> They also interview a professor who authored a book on the Japanese justice system who explains why the conviction rate is so high.

Yes. Pretty much prosecutors only prosecute cases they think they'll win and have leverage over defendants. The same issue you have in Canada and we have in the US.

> It turns out we can answer questions like this without relying on uninformed guesses by HN commenters.

Too bad you didn't choose bother to answer any of the questions.

> The wikipedia article isn't really wrong. Only 60% of the cases go before a jury. The conviction rate for cases that get to the jury around the 95% rate.

The Canadian criminal trial lawyer interviewed for this podcast specifically stated that if your case goes all the way to an actual trial, your chances (statistically) are 50/50.

She also stated that the rate Wikipedia reports for Canada isn't useful because the way it comes to this number is wrong and misleading.

Please actually listen to the podcast before spreading misinformation.

> The wikipedia article isn't really wrong. Only 60% of the cases go before a jury. The conviction rate for cases that get to the jury around the 95% rate.

You'd have a point if the stat about Japan was about the conviction rate of people who go before a jury, but unless I'm mistaken, the conviction rate we're talking about is that of people _charged_ overall.

That 60% figure in Canada is precisely referring to people who were charged, and whose charges were later dropped. Over 99.4% of people charged in Japan are eventually convicted.

Consider what it means to be charged. This allows for example the police to gather more information by doing what would otherwise infringe on someone's rights. So when you basically never drop charges, that means that either you infringe on people's privacy before they're charged, or you routinely disregard whatever exculpatory evidence you find. Either way, it's obviously bad.

It is certainly the case that "being charged" does not mean exactly the same thing in every country; the weight isn't the same everywhere, and the details differ too. So I suppose it's also conceivable that the japanese police can collect enough evidence without formal charges that the innocent go free there.

And of course - nobody is entirely innocent. Knowing that once charged you're almost certainly going to be convicted, perhaps suspects cooperate more in hope for leniency.

I mean, I doubt law enforcement are angels in japan, but I can imagine fairly benign factors contributing too.

Frankly - give how pervasive such high numbers are across much of the world, I'd say the argument for the efficacy of a confrontational legal system is undermined; clearly it's not working ideally.

> but unless I'm mistaken, the conviction rate we're talking about is that of people _charged_ overall.

You are mistaken.

"Nearly all criminal cases that go to trial in Japan end in a guilty verdict."

" Public prosecutors typically concentrate on suits where conviction is almost guaranteed, leading to the suspension of around 60 percent of criminal cases in Japan without an indictment."

https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/c05401/order-in-the-c...

So japanese prosecutors "drop" 60% of the cases/charges. The only cases they pursue are those they think they can win. They win 99% of those.

> That 60% figure in Canada is precisely referring to people who were charged, and whose charges were later dropped.

No. In the audio, they specifically stated that 37% ( or about a 3rd of the cases in canada ) are withdrawn, stayed or dropped. Meaning only 63% get to a jury. Of those, 3% are acquitted.

> Over 99.4% of people charged in Japan are eventually convicted.

Once again, this is not true. Only 40% of those charged ever see trial. Of those, 99.4% are convicted. In other words, 39.8% of those charged are convicted.

This exact point is addressed in the audio. (TL;DL: The number is around 60%, the rest is either withdrawn or gets a "crown stay")

(And this is why Wikipedia needs to be taken with a grain of salt)

Edit: please disregard and listen to the audio which explains this perfectly.

Maybe the Canadian justice system is worth a look at too. I am not saying that such a conviction rate would always mean the same thing. Canada after all has a reputation for being one of the most civilized places. But it's certainly interesting to see why this might be the case. In Japan the reasons for this that are typically cited aren't very nice ones and it is those reasons that make the case against Japan on this, not necessarily the statistics themselves.

>It's about the same in every country.

It's not

Weird, I missed the part where they torture people in Canada.

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