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Punishment and the Individual in the United States and Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

V. Lee Hamilton ,
Joseph Sanders ,
Yoko Hosoi ,
Zensuke Ishimura ,
Nozomu Matsubara ,
Haruo Nishimura ,
Nobuho Tomita  and
Kazuhiko Tokoro
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Abstract

In this paper we argue that differences in the conceptualization of individual actors in networks provide the most parsimonious explanation for differences that occur between American and Japanese views of sanctions and between actors in different role relationships within each society. Our empirical tests drew on respondents' hypothetical punishment choices and punishment rationales in surveys of Detroit, Michigan, and Yokohama and Kanazawa, Japan. As predicted, American views of punishments for everyday misdeeds were more likely to favor isolation or retribution and American rationales for imprisonment were significantly more retributive than in Japan. Within each culture, offenses between intimates were least likely to evoke isolative or retributive punishments whereas offenses between strangers were most likely to do so. We conclude by considering alternatives to our structuralist explanation of these findings and by suggesting some implications of legal culture for dispute resolution in the United States versus Japan.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , 1988 , pp. 301 - 328
Copyright
Copyright © 1988 by The Law and Society Association

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Footnotes

American data gathering and analysis were supported by the National Science Foundation Grant No. SOC 77-242918 (Law and Social Science Program), Japanese data gathering and analysis by the Nihon Gakujutsu Shinkokai and Mombusho, and travel by the Social Science Research Council and the Ford Foundation. Our thanks go to John Campbell and Steve Rytina for their comments on previous drafts. We are especially grateful to David Rauma for carrying out the probit analyses summarized here; to Robert Cole and John Campbell for facilitating the cross-cultural collaboration; and to Naoko Komyo, Mutsuko Endo-Simon, and Shunichi Kato for advice and instruction in Japanese language and culture.

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