＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
<Added 5/22/2021> The “Amended Juvenile Law” passed and enacted on 5/21/2021 has no legal consistency!
This “Amended Juvenile Law” is half-baked and incomplete, and I am personally opposed to it.
Since the right to vote has been granted to people over the age of 18, we should not be trapped by the conventional notion that “20 is adulthood,” but rather “people over the age of 18 should be expected to take on responsibilities commensurate with their rights as adults.”
A revision to the Public Offices Election Act has already granted the right to vote to those aged 18 and over since 2016, and a revision to the Civil Code will make those aged 18 and over adults under the Civil Code from April 2022.
It will also be possible to obtain qualifications such as certified public accountant or medical license from the age of 18, and people may also serve as jurors in lay judge trials.
“The idea of the revised Juvenile Law, which allows people to receive special treatment as ‘specified juveniles’ only when they commit a crime, is inconsistent with the law and is problematic in terms of rights and responsibilities.”
<Added 2/19/2021> 18- and 19-year-olds will be classified as “specified juveniles” and will be subject to the same severe penalties as people over 20 years old.
On February 19, the government decided at a cabinet meeting to classify 18- and 19-year-olds, who will be treated as adults from April 1, 2022, when the revised commercial broadcasting system comes into effect, as “specified juveniles,” and to expand and severely punish crimes that will be subject to criminal trials in the same way as those aged 20 and over.
However, I think this is a very lukewarm and underhanded approach. It should be made clear that the target of the Juvenile Law will be 17 years old or younger (although I think that in the future it should be limited to those aged 15 or younger, the age of compulsory education).
In recent years, there has been a constant stream of reports of suicides caused by “bullying.” This time, I would like to think about “bullying.”
“Bullying” and “ostracism” are not something that just started recently; they have existed since ancient times, and they are (or have been) not limited to “schools,” but also in “companies,” “the military,” “prisons/jails,” and “villages.”
Bullying in the military is typically bullying of new recruits (lynchings), while in prisons it is blackmail and punishment by long-time prison bosses, and in villages it is ostracism. I’ve also heard stories of bullying in nursing homes, where people are ostracized from the group for not saying hello.
Humans are emotional animals, so when they form a group, factions and groups form based on likes and dislikes and differences in thinking, and bullying is bound to occur.
This is the same as the fact that “crimes” such as theft will never disappear from the world, as stated in the last words of Ishikawa Goemon, “The sand on the river and the beaches may run out, but the breed of thieves in this world will never run out.”
１．What is “Bullying”?
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology defines it as “a child feeling distress as a result of mental or physical aggression by someone in a certain relationship with the child” and “repeated, long-term, unpleasant acts that are intended to damage and weaken the child’s self-esteem, and are persistent, cruel or malicious.”
２．Reasons why “bullying” persists
As I mentioned at the beginning, I think it is impossible to completely eliminate “bullying.”
However, the following reasons are thought to be why “bullying” has not yet decreased in “schools.”
(1) The reprimands and punishments given to the bullies (perpetrator groups) are sometimes lenient. In the past, I don’t know if it was for bullying or other crimes, but students who engaged in bad behavior were sent to juvenile detention centers one after another.
When a bullying problem occurs, the situation is grasped through surveys and other means, but there seems to be no reports on what kind of punishment was given to the perpetrators (groups). Aren’t there too few cases of referral to prosecutors, let alone to juvenile detention centers these days?
I think that cases that fall under criminal offenses, such as threats, assault, injury, blackmail, and incitement to theft, are naturally referred to prosecutors, but in the case of suicide due to bullying, the reality of the bullying doesn’t seem to be made public.
(2) “Boards of Education” and “school principals” have a tendency to “conceal” the facts of “bullying” in order to “preserve themselves.” Another problem is that even when investigations are conducted, the conclusion is often that “no causal relationship between bullying and suicide could be confirmed.”
Company compliance committees often investigate whether there is any “sexual harassment” or “power harassment,” but if they come to the conclusion that “there was not a single consultation about sexual harassment or power harassment” or “the survey results showed no compliance violations such as sexual harassment or power harassment,” it is necessary to question whether that conclusion is really correct.
While it is not impossible that there are zero such cases, I think it is more likely that these are outliers, and that there may be cases that have not come to light for some reason, such as “there is an atmosphere that makes it difficult to seek advice or report,” or “if a report is made, a manhunt for the culprit (accuser) will begin and there is a risk of retaliation,” and so I think we need to look into this again more carefully.
(3) We are overly concerned with the human rights and future of the “perpetrator,” and neglect the human rights and future of the “victim.” Taking advantage of the fact that they are protected by the “Juvenile Law,” aren’t the “bullying groups” of perpetrators underestimating today’s society and adults?
Rather than worrying about the future of the perpetrator, we should be more concerned about the future of the victim. To that end, we need to impose stricter penalties on “bullying.”
３．Measures against “bullying”
Sumo wrestler Takanoiwa was the “victim” in an assault by Harumafuji. However, he later became the “perpetrator” in an assault on his attendant. Apparently, he was a frequent bully in high school, and his nickname at the time was “Giant.”
A famous judo player also confessed that he was a bully as a child. But even if he wins an Olympic gold medal and becomes a global success, the emotional scars of those who were bullied by him will never heal, right?
The only way to combat bullying is to steadily eliminate the causes mentioned above.
Close cooperation between the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, boards of education, school principals, the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Justice, juvenile prisons, and others is desirable.
４．Lowering the age of adulthood
I think we need to consider amending the juvenile law, for example lowering the “target age.” It seems that there is consideration of lowering the age to 18 to match the “voting right,” and of course that should be done.
In terms of “distinguishing between right and wrong,” 15 years old is enough. In terms of “plasticity” (the possibility of rehabilitation), there may be a high degree of room for improvement through education for those under 15, but I think the possibility is low for those over 15.
Until the Edo period, people were expected to “come of age” at 15 and become “adults.” Shouldn’t the protection of the “juvenile law” be removed for those over that age?
The current Civil Code was created in 1896 (Meiji 29), and Article 4 stipulates that the age of majority is 20 years old. This was done to strike a balance between the age of majority in Western countries at the time, which was 21-25 years old, and domestic custom (15 years old).
I think that by giving “punishment” rather than “education,” we can “rehabilitate” “potential offenders,” and deter them from committing crimes again in the future. The current “age of 20” is clearly “overprotective.”