Rule violations of Japanese inmates; An artifact of a low imprisonment rate

Rule violations offer insights to inmate reactions to penal confinement and to the official control system. Japanese prisons are of special significance because of the diversion of convicted offenders when feasible. American critics of community corrections have argued that heavy diversion would impose only the most intransigent criminals on prisons. By the sociocultural standards of Japan, diversion has had that consequence for its prisons. Official data provide the opportunity to examine a system of rule enforcement under those circumstances, including the relationship with inmate recidivism and the length of imprisonment.