Watching trials of foreigners from the district court's spectators' gallery

TOKYO — "For every one Japanese, there have been 1.72 foreigners." This shocking statement, made on the floor of the Diet by the member of one of the opposition parties, would appear to claim that the crime rate for foreign nationals is higher than for Japanese.

"Those figures are calculated based on the populations of Japanese citizens and foreign residents, but they reflect the number of arrests made by the police, not the actual number of crimes committed," explained Taihei Ogawa, a former police detective in Kanagawa Prefecture who now covers crime as a journalist. 

"If we take the number of all crimes, including those for which charges weren't filed, I figure the rate of crimes by foreigners would be more than double," Ogawa added. 

The above-mentioned exchange on the floor of the Diet soon spread to the internet, where many posters voiced concerns that allowing more foreign workers into Japan would negatively affect public safety. 

What kinds of crimes by foreigners, wonders Asahi Geino (Dec 25), are we talking about? 

At the entrance to the Tokyo District Court in Kasumigaseki, which processes criminal cases in the 23 wards of Tokyo, visitors are able to view the day's sessions on a tablet computer. 

For approximately one month, reporter Goro Kazamatsuri sat in the spectator's gallery and selectively observed trial sessions. 

On a certain day in November, writes the reporter, out of a total of 69 court sessions, seven or roughly 10%, involved foreign nationals. On other days, however, the ratio of cases involving foreigners as defendants ran as high as 20% of the total. 

In the dock on Nov 11 was a 45-year-old Chinese woman named Ongg (a pseudonym) charged with providing illegal "services" at a massage parlor in Tokyo's Okubo district. (Her services in this case were described as using digital manipulation to help the customer reach orgasm.) 

Restrained by handcuffs and wearing a gray sweatsuit and sandals (apparently provided to jail prisoners), she appeared younger than her stated age, and vaguely resembled her pseudonymous namesake, popular Taiwanese vocalist Judy Ongg. 

She had allegedly entered Japan on a tourist visa last June. From August, at a friend's introduction, she took up employment in an Okubo massage parlor, servicing male customers for 10,000 yen a pop, of which she was allowed to keep half. She slept in her cubicle at the massage parlor and spent her free time shopping or eating in restaurants. In a sense, you might say, her work was not unlike  rizooto baito (working part-time at a resort). 

Ongg was arrested on suspicion of violating public morals on Sept 7 and spent the next two months incarcerated. After her deportation, which was all but inevitable, she informed the court "I won't be coming back to Japan." 

The court found her guilty and imposed a fine of 500,000 yen, but as the system provides, the period she spent in jail awaiting trial was deducted from the amount of the fine at the rate of 10,000 yen per day, which effectively cancelled out the fine. Her legal defense costs were covered by the court. 

The district court was less lenient towards a 45-year-old Chinese male, surnamed Yuan, who had initially come to Japan in 2012. He was able to stay because his spouse had permanent residence status, and he worked in the building trade. 

Earlier this year Yuan was suspected of breaking into buildings under construction in Tokyo's Koto Ward and making off with rotary saws and other tools valued at 150,000 yen. Police suspect him of other capers and are building their case against him. 

"It is said that in China, the police don't even bother prosecuting petty thefts (of items valued at around 22,000 Japanese yen or less)," remarked the aforementioned Kazamatsuri. "Yuan had a record of previous crimes, but he seemed be counting on not being sent to prison." 

On Nov 27, a handcuffed 26-year-old Nepalese man in handcuffs was led into the courtroom. On the night of Oct 1, it was alleged, he had become inebriated and plopped himself down in the middle of a street in Tokyo's Itabashi Ward. A resident summoned the police. When the cop approached, he allegedly lashed out with his right fist, punching the cop on top of his head. This led to his immediate arrest on suspicion of interfering with police duties. 

At his trial session on Nov 28, the Nepalese claimed he had been so drunk he had no recollection of what had transpired. He was found guilty and fined 200,000 yen. 

Along with adding to the district court's case burden, another problem involving foreigners that has surfaced has been securing the services of qualified court interpreters. 

"There's no problem if the language is English or Chinese, but it's difficult to line up interpreters for languages like Pashto (spoken in Afghanistan), Sinhalese (in Sri Lanka) or Kurdish," said Kazamatsuri. "It's come to the point that the dates for trial sessions are being determined not according to the schedules of the judges or attorneys, but the availability of the interpreters."  

It would seem, the article concludes, that the issues of crimes by foreigners seldom end with their arrest, but rather with the troublesome details of "post-processing."

© Japan Today