Amending Japanese crime law: names of 18 and 19-year-old criminals to no longer be concealed

Jul 07, 2020 | News On Japan

Jul 07, 2020 (soranews24.com) - From April 2022, the age of majority, or the age one is considered a legal adult, in Japan will lower from 20 to 18.

While this leaves the status of important annual rituals such as coming-of-age ceremonies in limbo, the shift will allow younger people a wider range of privileges such as the ability to vote, own a passport, and apply for a credit card.

However, the implications of the shift will also reverberate in another important part of Japanese society: juvenile criminal law.

Recently, the Abe administration has entered a round of inner party discussions over amending a law protecting the privacy of juvenile criminals. In prior years, if the perpetrator of a serious crime was younger than the age of 20, their names as well as photos were censored from mass media. Given the governmentâ€™s push to lower the age of legal adulthood to 18, it comes to no surprise that the age threshold for withholding a criminalâ€™s name from the news will be lowered as well.

While whether or not one believes teenagers should be tried as adults is dependent on oneâ€™s views on child development and crime, the topic of privacy is an essential issue in Japan, considering how even taking photos of private roads is a finable offense. And depending on oneâ€™s own individual opinion for the treatment of criminals, the removal of name concealment for criminals aged 18 and 19 may seem either fair or unethical.

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