Crime Trends

Abstract

Principal penal statute of the Showa period was the Penal Code promulgated in April 1907 and enforced on October 1, 1908. The Code came into being after major modifications to the old Penal Code of 1880. The new Code made several major revisions; it abolished the distinction of heavy crime (felony), light crime (misdemeanour) and police infractions; it eliminated from the Code such minor offences as defined under police infractions; it also decreased the categories of crimes, namely, in principal punishment; it abolished life or determinate-term reclusion (strict confinement at hard labour in solitary confinement, used for felons), life or determinate-term banishment (penal deportation to an isolated island and imprisonment there, used mainly for political offenders), heavy or light imprisonment with labour, heavy or light imprisonment in penitentiary (used for felons), heavy or light imprisonment in jail (for committing misdemeanours) and simplified the punishments as capital punishment, imprisonment with labour, imprisonment without labour, fines, penal detention and minor fines; and in supplemental punishments, it abolished deprivation of political rights, suspension of political rights, police surveillance and supplemental fines and provided for confiscation.