Event

Spending a weekend in jail is probably not at the top of most people’s list, but if you’ve had a passing thought about what a Japanese prison is like, then just like everything else in JapanLand, there’s a festival for it. Called Correctional Exhibitions (矯正展), they give a chance for the public to understand about life in prison and also sell the goods the prisoners themselves make. Indeed, the life of one interred in one of Japan’s jails is highly regimented and monitored, and there’s very little idle time. The correctional facilities themselves don’t exactly scream Super Max as they would elsewhere; For example, the grounds of the Tokyo Detention House are more pristine than Ueno and Yoyogi Parks. This year’s theme, Moving towards a brighter society is intended to focus on how the National Correctional System focuses on finding methods to rehabilitate and improve the lives of imprisoned inmates. The focus will be how the prison system has created a large trade school within every detention center that trains the interred to learn new skills and develop new things to help give them something to be proud of and ease them back into the social fabric upon their release.…