Netizens have opposed the news that a new women’s prison in Ehime Prefecture has been painted pink to make the inmates feel better.
While there are strong arguments for improving the treatment of prisoners in the Japanese justice system, particularly given recent overcrowding issues, many (male) netizens feel that Japan as a nation is too soft on its women, and that pink prisons are further evidence of this. Still, this view ignores the fact that many women in Japan do not have access to the same privileges in society as their male counterparts.
But would it really help to have pink prisons? And if pink walls make women inmates feel better, why wouldn’t they make men inmates feel better?
From Yomiuri Shimbun:
The Inmates Will Be Women…The Prison That Was Painted Pink
On August 29 it was announced by a media spokesperson that work on Saijo branch prison (Tamatsu, Saijo City, Ehime Prefecture) of the Matsuyama prison system, had been completed. The prison was being redecorated in order to house women prisoners.
The prison for women inmates is the first of its kind in Shikoku, and it has capacity for 83 women. It will begin housing prisoners from November 2014.
The facility will ease the national problem of overcrowding in prisons due to an increase in women prisoners, and has been planned to improve their treatment. The doors of single and shared rooms have been painted pink from their original white in an attempt to relieve any sense of oppression for the women.
If a woman inmate has given birth to a child, an infant room has also been built, which can be used until the child is one year old. A gynecology department is being set up, and of the 37 prison guards, most are women.
According to Matsuyama Prisons, from the end of March 2014 to the present, in Japan there are 3440 women inmates in a total of seven prisons that only have a capacity of 3342 inmates, making the custody rate 102.9% of total capacity. In some cases two women are staying in a single cell, while even in the work rooms there are three people using tables meant for two people to work at, and the prison guards say it is difficult to watch over prisoners.
In February 2013 the facility transferred around 20 male inmates to Matsuyama Prison in Matsuyama City, and it was decided that the prison would become a women’s prison. Work was started in May 2014, and complete on August 18. The cost of the work was 160,000,000 yen [approx. $1,536,114].
Nakahira Hideto, general manager of Matsuyama prisons said “Women prisoners from Shikoku had been held at prisons in Wakayama Prefecture and so on, but now we have built a facility here where they can work and live easily. We will put all our energy into giving them the vocational guidance they need”.
Comments from 2ch.net:
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Are they idiots?
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Why the hell are they making it all snug for them.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Don’t make them comfortable, fools.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
They’re aiming to be a prison where people want to be incarcerated time after time.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
It’s so weird that we live in a society that is so easy on women.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
They shouldn’t be wasting tax money.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
There’s no need to paint the walls of a bloody prison!
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Why do they need that kind of concern?
Isn’t it a facility to make people reflect on their crimes?
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Don’t do such pointless things.
Fools.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Don’t use our hard-earned tax on this shit!
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Aren’t women’s prisons already pretty free? Are they gonna do even more?
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
It’s an at-home prison where anyone can commit a crime without worrying.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
So even criminals are getting treated like princesses huh.
This country is amaaaazing.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
What sense of oppression?
Prisoners don’t need human rights.
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
Why do they care so much about these prisoners
名無しさん＠０新周年＠＼(^o^)／:
I reckon white would be more relaxing…
