Public attitudes to the death penalty in Japan


Te results from the 2009 government survey show that the vast majority of respondents (86%) are retentionists (“the death penalty is unavoidable in some cases”) with small proportions of respondents who are undecided (9%) or opposed to the death penalty (6%). On the face of it, these figures lead to the conclusion that the Japanese public is strongly in favour of the death penalty, with little dissent. Examining results from the preliminary survey, however, offered a less black-and-white picture of public attitudes.


Having two retentionist options, rather than one, yields a substantial proportion of respondents (35%) who are tentatively committed to retention. Less than half (44%) are determined to keep the death penalty. It is the groups of respondents who are either “unsure”, or who “do not really have an opinion” about the death penalty, which the preliminary survey successfully captures, and this is what differentiates it from the government survey. Respondents who selected options with a degree of uncertainty towards the death penalty – “should probably be kept”, “should probably be abolished” and “cannot say” – amounted to the majority (55%). Tis means that just over half of the Japanese public were “undecided” or “lukewarm” in their attitude towards the death penalty. Tis finding is consistent with those of Hamai (2007, 2008) who found that, in Japan, a majority of respondents (65%) had qualified views about the death penalty, and a minority of respondents (33%) strongly supported it.


Figure 6: Survey 1


16% 3%


1% 44% 35%


■ should definitely be kept ■ should probably be kept ■ cannot say


■ should probably be abolished


■ should definitely be abolished


Notes: 1) N=20,769. 2) Te total percentage for the preliminary survey does not add up to 100% due to rounding.


Te first survey showed that the Japanese public is not uniformly supportive of the death penalty, and that many are undecided or unsure about their position. Tis was demonstrated by the fact that over half of the respondents (55%) were undecided or had qualified views on the topics. It could be argued that these “weakly-held views” show the death penalty to be an issue that people “know little about, do not think much about, and do not care about” (Unnever, Cullen & Roberts, 2005, p. 207). Te range of death penalty positions demonstrated by the preliminary survey undermines the claim of “majority support” used by the Japanese government to justify retention.


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