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Japan’s Secret Hanging Chamber

Japan's Execution Chamber Image Mainichi Daily News

Image: Mainichi Shimbun.

Japan is one of the few industrialized nations that still uses the death penalty, and they still execute prisoners by hanging. Mainichi Shimbun (or “The Mainichi Daily News,” one of Japan’s largest newspapers) says that reporters were allowed to view Tokyo’s execution chamber, one of the seven such facilities in the country, for the first time today.

The sterile-looking chamber has a trap door in the floor, with a room below into which the hanging condemned fall so they are not visible to observers as they die. Reporters did not see that chamber.

Keiko Chiba, Japan’s Justice Minister, decided to show the room to reporters after witnessing the execution of two prisoners. She said she wanted to spur a nationwide debate on whether the death penalty should exist in Japan and how executions should be performed.

Hanging is specified in the Japanese Penal Code as the method by which executions shall be performed, a practice that dates to the Meiji period (1868-1912).

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3 comments on “Japan’s Secret Hanging Chamber”

  2. I think that may be over the correct drop distance if they fall into a lower chamber. If the body falls too far, the condemed persons head is literally pulled from the velocity of the drop.

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