NCJ Number
114858
Journal
Prison Journal Volume: 68 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring-Summer 1988) Pages: 3-23
Date Published
1988
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This paper combines the organizational management perspective and the cross cultural perspective in a comparative analysis of Japanese and American prisons.
Abstract
The paper first briefly discusses the impact of Japanese culture on crime, crime control, and corrections, followed by a comparison of prison safety measures in Japanese and American prisons. After discussing the effects of governmental organization on prison safety, the effects of culture on prison safety are then considered. The remaining sections of the paper discuss the effects of organizational management practices on prison safety and emerging challenges to Japanese prison management. The paper concludes that Japan has developed an integrated, well-organized, cost-effective system of custody institutions. Its correctional employees are professional, adequately trained, and demonstrate a high degree of work-group solidarity. Japanese prisons are managed under a modified Theory Z organizational framework, which reflects core Japanese cultural values. This apparently produces safer prisons than American bureaucratic prisons. The data suggest that centralized organizational management, with its associated consistency of standards and procedures, is also important, although it is not sufficient to produce safe prisons or to ameliorate the negative effects of prisonization on inmates and staff. Japanese prison standards for the legal protections of inmates rights, nutrition, and discipline do not meet American standards in most cases. 6 footnotes, 60-item bibliography.