ISSUES: SECRECY AND THE LACK OF TRANSPARENCY
The near lack of transparency and secrecy ensconcing the death penalty in Japan have received international opprobrium. Some salient issues:
A) Prisoners receive no advance notice of execution.
Those chosen for execution are informed only on the morning of the hanging.
B) Prohibition of outside observers.
No family, attorneys, or supporters are are allowed to view the execution.
C) The complete absence of any public list of those sentenced to death.
Incredulous as it may seem, the government does not maintain any viewable list of death row prisoners. The two present existing lists (JIADEP's English list cited below) are kept and maintained by by private citizens.
For this reason, when discussing the number of existing death row inmates, the mass media will always use approximations. Some typical citations are: “the 111 people believed to be on death row,” or, “the approximate 111 prisoners on death row.”
D) Public access to general death row metrics—practically nonexistent.
Apart from the absence of any official list of current convictions, other statistics regarding those executed, i.e., appeals for clemency, comprehensive demographic information, length of incarceration, age at time of sentence, etc., are conspicuously absent.
E) Prisoner Restrictions with the Outside World
1) Visits. Unlike the USA, visits are only granted to family members, guarantors and attorneys. As most death row inmates are abandoned by family, they can be adopted by outsiders and added to family registers. ( Hence, the large number of prisoners with changed names.)
Visits can be restricted to 20 minutes even for those who might spend several hours commuting. The restriction is to discourage interactions with the outside world and conceal the inhmane treatement from the free world.
2) Mail/Telephone. Mail-postal communications-are also highly restricted. Video visits, email, and phone privelages are unknown.
F) Outside Observations Prohibitions
Death row inmates are housed in detention centers where suspects are held pretrial. Outside tours are allowed but the execution chambers are off limits. Furthermore, staff will not answer any questions about death row.
SUMMARY
In short, the entrenched lack of transparency regarding capital punishment in Japan, is a deliberate, bureaucratic policy. Discouraging public curiosity and opinion keeps the public ignorant, and fortifies the status quo.
Despite the government's best efforts to hide and misinform, JIADEP maintains a list of death row inmates with various metrics:
https://www.jiadep.org/resources/Chart-Shikei.html
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Regarding secrecy, JIADEP suggests the following readings:
"Japan's Secretive Death Penalty Policy"
by Professor David Johnson.
University of Hawaii
Many death row inmates want advance notice of execution
2012(Mainichi Japan)
Who lives and who dies-a mystery.
Japan: Disclosed files fail to show why convicts chosen for execution (2018)