On December 1,2004, the House of Councilors enacted a law amending the Penal Code of Japan and other related acts. This was the first major amendment of the Penal Code since its enactment in 1907. The main point of the amendments was to raise the statutory penalty limits (i.e., the maximum or minimum sentence set forth in the penal rules for each crime) in response to legislative policy aimed at preventing crime. According to the Ministry of Justice, the amendments result from three primary factors recognized by the legislative branch: (1) a changing sense of justice; (2) an increasing crime rate; and (3) the severity of sentencing. These factors are all based on statistical evidence. In this paper, the author examines the record of the Legislative Council of the Ministry of Justice to determine whether these three primary legislative factors are based on sound empirical evidence. The conditions of raising the statutory penalty limits are also discussed from a viewpoint of evidence-based policy.

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This article will expound upon the discussions and the processes that took place in the deliberations that lead to the revision of the juvenile law in Japan in the year 2000 from the viewpoint of evidence-based-policies and/or evidence-based-practices. In Japan, most laws have been passed by the Diet through proposals that were submitted by the cabinet. This process now seems to be in a state of change. The revision of the juvenile law in 2000 was the first major law to be revised through the proposals and discussions by the members of the Diet. Generally, when a law is proposed by the cabinet to the Diet, the proposal needs to be examined, prior to submission to the Diet, at the Council on Law within the Ministry of Justice, where specialists, such as professors of law, representatives from the prosecutor's office, representatives from the Supreme Court, and representatives from the Japan Bar Association, participate in feasibility discussions on the merits and the demerits of the proposal from their respective areas of specialty. This paper will examine how the discourse on the revision of the juvenile law in 2000 was constructed at the Diet by studying what nature of juvenile crimes was recognized, and how the revision of the juvenile law was determined to prevent the brutalization of juvenile crime with reference to the evidence. This examination will show that there were very few discussions referring to the relevance of evidence. In 2005, the latest revision to the juvenile law was proposed by the cabinet to the Diet. When I examined how one of the three main points to revise the juvenile law was supported by evidence, and how this point was discussed at the Council on Law within the Ministry of Justice, I could find little evidence that supported that particular point for the proposed revision. Both methods of revising the juvenile law suffer from deficiencies when viewed from the perspective of evidence-based-policies and/or evidence-based-practices.

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This paper is about the significance of Evidence Based Policy (EBP) and some problems for further consideration from the viewpoint of the theory of "Community Safety Policy." It can be said that the current success of EBP in the United States means "the victory of collaboration between practitioners' wisdom and science" rather than "the victory of science over practice." Advocates of EBP among practitioners and criminologists share the goal to reject theories not based on real life. Because of some problems which need further consideration, it is unclear as to whether EBP takes the full place of the current policy-making method in the Japanese police organizations. However, under preferable circumstances, EBP must be a reliable measure to verify the effectiveness of policies planned by practitioners. The trial-and-error approach which can be seen in the EBP implemented in the United States should be introduced to the Japanese Police in order to improve its policies.

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This article analyzes "The Basic Plan for Enhancing the Treatment Function of Rehabilitation Aid Hostels-Total Plan for New Rehabilitation Aid Hostels in the 21^<st> Century," which was enacted in January 2000, from the point of view of evidence-based policy. The Total Plan was developed mainly on the basis of consensus built between the policy-makers and practitioners, rather than evidence in a strict sense. However, it can be argued that the Total Plan was developed on a rational basis, which is the principle point of evidence-based policy. Furthermore, this article raises a number of issues that introduce the idea of evidence-based policy so it can take a firm hold on policy-making.

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This article overviews the use of randomized experiments in criminal justice and criminology. The paper presents the rationale for doing experiments, emphasizing its ability to rule out causal explanations for observed findings. After presenting a brief history of justice trials, the paper concludes with a discussion of limitations of the method.

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This paper presents a brisk history of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program, America's most popular school-based drug prevention strategy. After a brief description of the program, the paper outlines the history of D.A.R.E. from its beginnings in 1983 to the 21^<st> Century, with particular attention paid to research evidence relevant to D.A.R.E. The paper highlights the mid- to late-1990s, a period that saw D.A.R.E. remain resilient and even expand in light of negative research findings. Drawing on results from a study of D.A.R.E. and the uses of evaluation findings, the author offers five common themes to explain this irony. By the late 1990s, however, D.A.R.E. was seemingly in decline. Research-particularly in the form of large government reviews and best practice lists-played an influential role, and ultimately led to a meeting between D.A.R.E. leadership and evaluators to ascertain how the program could be improved. A new D.A.R.E. curriculum targeting a more age-appropriate group of students was introduced and is now being evaluated in a randomized experiment in the U.S. that includes over 100 schools.

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There are some widely held myths about violent juvenile crime in Japan. For instance, it is said that violent crimes committed by juveniles who do not have a past record of crime are increasing. It is also said that serious juvenile offenders with no problems in their family backgrounds, or their own social adjustment, are on the increase these days. Some researchers express the opinion that violent crime is more prevalent among ordinary boys and girls. However, most of these remarks have no factual basis. This paper examines whether the myths are true based on crime statistics and questionnaire survey data. The sample of this survey consists of 728 delinquents who were arrested by the police on a violent crime charge. The findings are as follows: 1. The proportion of first-time offenders to all delinquents who committed violent crimes is not going up. 2. The degree of criminality of repeat violent offenders is higher than that of first-time offenders even now. 3. There is a close connection between violent crime and the family backgrounds of delinquents and their own social adjustment even now.

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The objective of this paper is to re-examine the problem of, and social intervention with respect to, the use of methamphetamine (a crystalline hydrochloride stimulant), which is called "Philopon" in Japan (1940-1950s), focusing on "Levels" and "Degrees" of criminalization and medicalization of Philopon use. Many researchers claim that Philopon use was criminalized and medicalized at that time. First, the author reviews some studies about criminalization and medicalization of Philopon use, and then re-articulates and reconstructs those categories. Second, the author examines how Philopon users were corrected in prison and how Philopon toxicity was treated in doctor-patient relationships. Finally, the author presents an understanding of the criminalization and medicalization of Philopon use. The author concludes that Philopon use was, on the one hand, criminalized and medicalized in conception and institution level in high degree, but it was, on the other hand, criminalized and medicalized in interaction level in low degree.

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This paper seeks to determine whether part-time jobs held by high school students can serve to prevent juvenile delinquency in the form of "involvement," one of the social bonds observed by Hirschi. Two statistical analyses using empirical data were conducted. The first statistical analysis compared 1,509 general high school students with 439 high school students who had police records. The author did a cross-tabulation and logistic regression analysis. The students' hope of progressing to a higher grade, club activities, and a part-time job were all used as independent variables. The second statistical analysis used self-reporting of juvenile delinquency in the general high school student population as a dependent variable in a similar analysis to the first one. Both statistical analyses (the one for students with a police record, and for those self-reporting delinquency) led to similar conclusions. A part-time job held by a high school student was not a factor preventing delinquency. On the contrary, high school students who work part-time, even when controlling for the hope of progressing to a higher grade and club activities, have a high probability of engaging in delinquent behavior. The author considered three logical possibilities to explain the results. The first possibility is that a part-time job is a risk factor of delinquency. The second possibility is that some characteristic of the juvenile delinquent leads him or her to take a part-time job. The third possibility is that the characteristics of parents who allow juveniles to work part-time can be interpreted to be the source of both.

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