RT Article
T1 Reporting the real names of juvenile offenders: a study of Japanese perspectives through the lens of symbolic discrimination
JF International journal of law, crime and justice
VO 74
A1 Watamura, Eiichiro
A2 Ioku, Tomohiro
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1869926714
AB This study examined Japanese attitudes toward reporting the real names of juvenile offenders, through the lens of symbolic discrimination. This topic has attracted much attention in recent literature. As extant research suggests that the Japanese public considers Japan's Juvenile Law to be outdated, we hypothesized that the notion of symbolic discrimination—which argues that juveniles should not be treated differently from adults—would be related to attitudes toward real-name reportage. After an online survey of 961 Japanese people aged 14 years and older, a multiple regression analysis was conducted to investigate attitudes toward real-name reportage of and symbolic discrimination against juvenile offenders, including appropriate punishment for bad behavior (balance) and adversity experienced by juvenile offenders (adversity). The results showed that, in addition to several of the participants' beliefs about and perceptions of juvenile offenders and crimes, balance was associated with support for real-name reportage, demonstrating that symbolic discrimination was related to support for the same.
K1 Japan's juvenile law
K1 Penal Populism
K1 Public Opinion
K1 Real-name reportage
K1 Symbolic discrimination
DO 10.1016/j.ijlcj.2023.100603