Masahiro TSUSHIMA (Professor, Faculty of Sociology)
The International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD) was first implemented from 1992-1993 with criminology teams participating from 13 countries, and is now a large-scale international comparative research project with participation from 35 countries. This unit aims to improve the international presence of Ryukoku University’s Criminology Research Center (CrimRC) by participating in ISRD as a representative of Japan in collaboration with the Quantitative and Qualitative Methodologies Unit. Activities planned by this unit are: (1) to hold ISRD data analysis study sessions; and (2) dispatch young researchers to ISRD plenary meetings.
Kazumasa AKAIKE (Professor, Faculty of Law)
Sangyun KIM (Professor, Faculty of Law)
The unit aims to anticipate and investigate policy proposals made by the Japanese government for The 14th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice to be held in Japan in 2020, provide a critical analysis of these policy proposals from the viewpoint of the concept of risk in criminal justice and measures to prevent re-offending, and propose counter suggestions to the government’s policy proposals from the private sector.
Activities for 2019 first consist of bringing together comprehensive discussions of problems in the system of medical care at penal institutions from last year, and ideally to quickly publish these discussions in book form. The unit will also focus on the topic of recidivism prevention, and hold study sessions that will bring together the various activities in this area to be presented at the United Nations Congress. This opportunity will be used to explain how recidivism prevention is tackled in various other countries, and within these study sessions several comparative study groups will be organized to establish the topology of Japan’s stance on recidivism prevention.
Shin-ichi ISHIZUKA (Professor, Faculty of Law)
This unit aims to increase the widespread presence of legal education intended for lay citizens, with the objective of both formulating a theory of legal information and legal education in the lay judge trial system era, and practical implementation of this theory. Specifically, this unit plans to hold: (1) a Legal Education Festa (that will use a variety of approaches to legal education, such as mock votes, criminology education, introduction to legal studies, legal information education, and mock trials); and (2) free on-site lessons in legal education (the Fudano Project: a program that holds mock trials and is intended for junior and senior high school teachers throughout Japan).