The Death Penalty in Japan


First, Figure 2 identified that younger respondents, especially the age group 20-29, had the lowest response rates in the government survey. Secondly, when looking at death penalty attitudes, it shows that the same age group comprised the largest proportion of abolitionists (Figure 4). Tis means that the group which is least represented has the highest proportion of abolitionists.


Figure 4: Abolitionists by age Abolitionists (%)


30 25 20 15 10 5 0


1967 1975 1980 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009


Note: 1) Data not available for 1956 government survey. 2) Line indicating “60-69” for the 1967, 1975, and 1980 government surveys include those who were 70 and over. 3) See note 1) and 2) in Figure 8 for the definition of “abolitionists”.


What follows from this finding is that the rising proportion of retentionists in the government survey may not be reflected in the views of the Japanese public. Te lack of correction made on non-response could be linked to what appears to be the increase in majority support for the death penalty. Figure 5 shows that as response rates go down, so do proportions of abolitionists and the reverse trend for retentionists.


In order to examine the effect of non-response and the under-representation of certain groups on the overwhelming support towards the death penalty, the following formula was used to provide a confidence interval for proportions of retentionists. Tis was done by applying corrections to the resulting sample, based on the non-response rate calculated from the theoretical sample.81


20-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70 >


It was not possible to make estimations for the population due to due to the unavailability of the micro-data. If the data had been available, it would have been possible to correct the estimates using weighting techniques.


81 38


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