In the U.K., it’s not enough to bow down… Experts explain the original purpose and meaning of DBS
Why is the “employer’s responsibility” not mentioned in Japan?
Whenever I hear this kind of news, I wonder why, in Japan, there is no mention of the responsibility of school boards and cram schools that “hire” criminals.
I can’t help but wonder why there is no mention of the responsibility of school boards and cram schools that “hire” offenders in Japan.
In order to protect children from sex crimes, a “Japanese version of DBS” is being considered for legislation.
The DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) was created in the U.K. in 2012. It is a database of criminal records, etc., and employers can request a DBS check with the consent of those who wish to work for them to determine whether or not to hire them. Employers can then request a check from the DBS with the consent of the person seeking employment and use it as a basis for deciding whether or not to hire.
The “Japanese version of DBS” will likely require schools, daycare centers, and orphanages to use the system.
This system was originally created in the United Kingdom based on the “opportunity theory of crime.
Opportunism is the idea that crime can be prevented by denying people the opportunity to commit crimes. In order to prevent the opportunity to commit crimes, the location manager must take responsibility for crime prevention.
As in Japan, the global standard is to hold the managers and owners of places where crimes are committed responsible for their actions, rather than just punishing the criminals. In the U.K., there is also a strong criminal opportunity theory law,” he said.
For example, when a park is built, it must be designed with crime prevention in mind, and if a sex crime occurs in a restroom, the local government must pay a huge amount of compensation if the measures are insufficient.
While the hard side of criminal opportunity theory is architectural design, the soft side is the “employment system.
The DBS in the U.K. receives a variety of information on anti-social behavior, including police warnings and company disciplinary actions, not to mention crimes, and experts in the DBS make risk assessments.
As a result, suppose a person is judged not to be allowed to engage in child-related work. If the employer knowingly hires the employee, the employer will be punished for hiring the employee, even if the employee did not commit a crime.
The Japanese version of the DBS will only cover educational institutions, but in the UK it applies to all occupations that have contact with children.
In Japan, when misconduct occurs at a school, school officials and school board members come out and bow their heads, but in the UK, it is not enough to just bow your head. In Japan, school officials and school board members come out and bow down when school misconduct occurs, but in the U.K., it is not enough to just bow down. This is a serious matter for employers.
However, even in Japan, the “negligence” of the person who hired you can be questioned
In Japan, people who commit crimes are punished, but not those who hire them,
The reason is that the Japanese government thinks in terms of “the cause of the crime,” i.e., why did the person commit the crime? Many people, even legal experts, are not familiar with the concept of criminal opportunity theory, which focuses on the “place” of the crime.
So, for example, if a teacher commits a crime, is the person who hired him or her not held responsible in Japan?
You can charge them with negligence,” he said. If you fail to investigate past incidents, which can be found with a little research, and hire someone based on a spur-of-the-moment decision, you are negligent.
If there was a problem in the room where you are alone with your child, and you left it as it was, you can also be charged with negligence.
It could be that you didn’t know he was that kind of person, but …….
Unless the situation is such that it would be difficult to know even if you made an effort to investigate, the fact that you didn’t know can itself be negligence.”
In particular, mistakes related to the design of a building or facility can be identified just by looking at it, so if you argue on the basis of the criminal opportunity theory, you can more easily be found negligent.
In fact, when indiscriminate killings occurred at Ikeda Elementary School in Ikeda City, Osaka Prefecture in 2001, the school was found to be negligent, and at Okawa Elementary School, where 84 children and teachers died or went missing in the tsunami following the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, negligence was also held responsible.
If a “Japanese version of DBS” is established, it will be easier to hold schools accountable for their negligence, and the “bowing down” will no longer be the end of the story as it has been in the past.
It is not about shutting them out of society… In Europe and the U.S., there are ways to rehabilitate them in that way.
There are some who argue that the “Japanese version of DBS” should be legalized. One of them is that it infringes on “freedom of choice of occupation.
The “Japanese version of DBS” is a “Japanese version of DBS DBS only limits the opportunities for contact between people who are at high risk of committing crimes and those who are at high risk
However, this system in the U.K. is by no means an attempt to keep criminals out of society, according to Komiya.
In Europe and the United States, “restorative justice” has already been in place for about 20 years. This is where the victim and the offender meet face to face, and the victim is told how painful it is for the offender, and the offender is educated to realize the gravity of the crime. Neither prosecutors nor judges appear in this process.
In Japan, if you commit a crime, the only path is to be prosecuted and put on trial, but in the West, in addition to the path of prosecution, a path of restorative justice is also available. Some young people are unaware of what they have done, but we are helping them to rehabilitate themselves in this way.
The program also encourages rehabilitation in various other ways, such as making people aware of their own value through community service activities such as volunteering in the community, without incarcerating them in prison. We are not just making things tougher.
The “Japanese version of DBS” will not currently mandate the use of cram schools, swimming clubs, babysitters, and the like. I wonder if this will work,
The UK has taken its time to broaden the scope of the program. I think it is okay to start with this level at first. But I would like to see a law on criminal opportunity theory, which is the premise of DBS.”
The “Japanese version of DBS” was scheduled to be introduced in the next extraordinary session of the Diet, but with the replacement of Ayuko Kato as Minister of State for Children’s Policy, the timing of the bill’s submission has become a “blank slate. As a mother of two children, the perspective of Senator Kato was also expected to be taken into consideration. For the sake of children who are still at risk in many places, we can only hope that the bill will be enacted into law as soon as possible.
Nobuo Komiya Professor at Rissho University. D. in Sociology. He was the first Japanese to graduate from the Graduate School of Criminology at the University of Cambridge. Worked at the United Nations Far East Crime Prevention Training Institute in Asia and the Ministry of Justice before assuming his current position. He has served as the chairman of the National Police Agency’s Research and Study Group on Safe and Secure Community Development and as the chairman of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s Delinquency Prevention and Victimization Prevention Education Committee. He is the author of a book titled “Photo de Tsukuru Sekai no Bohaku: Ruins, Design, and Community Planning” (Crime Prevention in the World: Crime Prevention through Photographs) published by Shogakukan. He has appeared on television, been interviewed by newspapers, and given numerous lectures throughout Japan.
Click here for his websiteand YouTube channel “Nobuo Komiya’s Room of Criminology.
Interview and text by： Izumi Nakagawa
