9/5/2005

Theft may soon be punishable by fines
In a bid to be more flexible when dealing with small-time crooks, the Justice Ministry intends to introduce fines as a penalty for theft, ministry officials said recently.
Under existing laws, theft is punishable only by imprisonment. Yet the crime covers a wide range of wrongs-from petty shoplifting to using heavy machinery to tear out ATMs and cart them off.
Sentences range from a month to 10 years.
In practice, this has led to minor thefts like shoplifting often going unpunished or resulting in suspended sentences.
Yet although imprisoning repeated shoplifters seems excessively harsh, letting them go seems equally lenient.…more…

Ohhhh, I don’t like the sound of this. Japan has a 99% conviction rate and now fines for fun. It’s bad enough that tortured confessions are the norm in Japan—Now the number of innocent poor people who will owe fines be a problem. Where’s my Monoply(tm) (モノポリー) money to pay these fines.