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Man Gets 22 Years For Killing Infant

aichi child murder

On February 4^th, 2005 in Anjo, Aichi, Ujiie Katsunao, a man on parole for theft charges, walked into the local Ito Yokado supermarket, picked up a knife on display, and stabbed an 11-month old boy to death. This used to be my local supermarket. I live in Nagoya now, but during my stint as a Nova teacher, I lived five minutes from this store.

On Monday, he was sentenced to only 22 years in prison. The judge found that Ujiie suffered from mental problems, and apparently, that means you’re allowed to walk free again at a certain point. This man also attacked the mother of the slain child in the courtroom.

It surprised me that Japan, which doesn’t use the death penalty infrequently, didn’t see fit to apply it to this case. Since it wasn’t premeditated, I would imagine that in the US, this type of offender would at least get life imprisonment. Ujiie will be 59 at the time of his release, and that wouldn’t be too old to commit this sort of crime again.

I was shocked that in a country where the decreasing number of children is causing headaches for those in power that they would not try to do more in the name of children. A man who murdered an infant will eventually be free to do it again, and Japan is the only world power which still doesn’t have stern laws against the creation and distribution of child pornography. With a government that gives such little credence to child welfare, no one should be surprised that people are unwilling to bring more into the world.

Yomiuri Shimbun, via Yahoo News

22 comments - What do you think? Posted by Brandon - February 20, 2008 at 9:33 pm

Categories: General Japan Tags: crime, japan, justice, news

Pingback: Man Gets 22 Years For Killing Infant « The Legend of Bentoman
404error

he will surely be put in a closed mental institution after his 22year sentence
RYO

I’ve always been under the impression that the gap between the ultimate punishment (death penalty) and all other forms of punishment in Japan was quite large, as illustrated a bit indirectly by the existence of a statute of limitations for murder of 15 years and more directly by what I sense are relatively short sentences for rape and killings while intoxicated.

Or am I wrong?
HennaOjisan

22yrs is pretty much. Im not so sure if the US law system either is that good.

http://brandonpittman.wordpress.com Brandon
http://brandonpittman.wordpress.com Brandon

Houston woman got 28 for death in a car accident.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5515943.html

A vegan couple got life for malnourishment of newborn.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18574603/?GT1=9951
Montsan

The U.S. justice system is a tad inconsistent when it comes to sentencing and quite frankly needs to be reassessed. The most obvious and popular example would be the harsh sentences imposed upon those who are found guilty of possessing marijuana versus some of the more violent crimes such as armed robbery or certain levels of sexual assault.

The sentencing system isn’t quite broken, but it needs an overhaul nonetheless.

And yes, based on some very preliminary research, it sounds like Japan is in need of even more change.

madne0

What a scumbag.
David

If he’s mentally ill they should but him in a closed mental institution and give him treatment, not put him in prison.
Level3

This highlights a bigger issue, not unique to Japan. Lack of funding, and/or just plain lack of, mental institutions. This seems to lead doctors to release dangerous people into public, because there’s just nowhere to keep all the potentially dangerous psychos locked up. Hard to know which 1 out 1000 mentally deranged people is actually going to kill, and you can’t afford to lock up all 1000.

Although, this being Japan, where the doctor is rarely held accountable for errors, I am tempted to suspect that just plain incompetence is another factor, while unwillingness to change, even when babies get killed, is the most important problem of all.

majiimeaussie

The bigger question is how do you decide who the “potentially dangerous psychos” are and if you have the right to lock them up when they have not done anything but only have the potential to do something.

There is inconsistency in sentencing all around the world. We don’t have the details of the case so it is hard to know if this sentence is appropriate or not. It at least seems to be in the right range.

The article quoted does not appear to even try to be balanced but the authors rant on the subject.

http://www.youtube.comtkyosam Sam

This is a perfect example of how retarded and out of place Japan is with worldly/logical views.

Sometimes this place is more backwards than…I don’t know, North Korea???
Dakk

I find your support of the Death Penalty to be nothing short of disturbing, for you are no better than the man who carried out the heinous crime. Both have no respect for human life.

These sorts of people, whom are mentally unstable, shouldn’t be killed. They would serve society, as a whole, better if we could study their actions. We should find out WHAT compels them to commit these actions in the first place, in order to help further prevent them in the future.

The Overthinker

“Both have no respect for human life.”

Do you consider all human life equally worthy of respect, and all means and reasons for ending it equally bad?

Marcus Larsson

Not all human life is worthy of respect but all human life is worthy of existance. No human being has the right to take anothers life.

Many people seem to not understand what murder is. It’s the removal of a person from this world with all his being, feelings and potential destroyed in an instant. But it is also one of the greatest offences that can be done to those close to him and most of the time they don’t deserve that pain.

Death sentence is murder.

The Overthinker

Nor does the family of the victim.
Brandon

So if Hitler had been brought up on trial, you would’ve have recommended imprisonment again? It obviously worked the first time around.

OsakaGuy

I’m against the government executing this killer, because I’d like to strangle him myself.
Brett

Was he a marine? =)
http://bonesworld-gooch.blogspot.com/ Bonesdog

“With a government that gives such little credence to child welfare, no one should be surprised that people are unwilling to bring more into the world.”

Yes, because you know, that’s always the first thing prospective parents think about: “Does my government give much credence to child welfare?”

C’mon, if this was the case there wouldn’t be any third-world countries, because the locals would have stopped having children a couple of decades ago making the entire population die out! If this was the case China would not have a population of 1.5 BILLION people.

If you are going to editorialize, at least make cogent arguments.

http://relaxedfocus.blogspot.com Rob

Concur wholeheartedly. Affluent, “westernized” societies all end up having lower birthrates. The US, Europe and Japan are all having population and birthrate issues. The difference between the US/Europe and Japan is that in the former, immigration takes up a lot of the slack. Which is why there’s the “panic” over Islamic immigration and “victory via childbirth” in Europe, and why Americans are freaking out about building some kind of *SuperWall* to keep all the brown people from coming up from Mexico.

That last statement of the article made my eyes roll so far back in my head it hurt a little bit.

Of course, in Japan, immigration is not an an option, to its detriment. But we all know that soon Japanese super science will repopulate the country with robots and/or clones. You have been warned.

http://www.cunning-linguist.co.uk Victoria

I’d be more concerned about the lack of well-managed psychiatric care for the mentally ill and criminally insane in Japan than their reluctance to apply the death penalty. If the guy is nuts then 22 years is probably quite a harsh sentence by western standards, but equally his rehabilitation should be carefully managed and he should be kept in a mental institution for the rest of his life – in Japan, that probably won’t happen.

Man Gets 22 Years For Killing Infant

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