1 Yack, Bernard, “Injustice and the Victim's Voice,” 89 Mich. L.Rev. 1334 (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Among others, Hamilton and Sanders build on the works of Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society (New York: Macmillan, [1893]); Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation (New York: Free Press, [1947]); Henry Maine, Ancient Law (Boston: Beacon Press, [1906]); F. Tonnies, Community and Society (New York: Harper Torchbooks, [1887]);and R. Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society (Stanford: University of California Press, 1959). See Hamilton & Sanders at 8-12, 21-47.Google Scholar

3 See Peter A. Corning, “Human Nature Redivivus,” in J. Roland Pennock & John W. Chapman, eds., Human Nature in Politics 19 (New York: New York University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

4 A view shared by Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, and Aaron Wildavsky in their Cultural Theory 33-37 (Boulder, Col.: Westview Press, 1990).Google Scholar

5 The American survey was carried out in Detroit (in 1977, N=678), while the two Japanese surveys were done in Yokohama (in 1978, N=600), and Kanazawa (in 1979, N=640). Yokohama was chosen because in many ways it resembles Detroit, while Kanazawa was selected in the belief that it may represent an older, more traditional Japan. See Hamilton & Sanders at 92-96.Google Scholar

6 Of course, Hamilton and Sanders could not possibly have carried out a research project of this scope by themselves. They received much valuable help from several Japanese collaborators, most notably Zensuke Ishimura, Kazuhiko Tokoro, Haruo Nishimura, Yoko Hosoi, Nozomu Matsubara, and Nobuho Tomita. See also Hamilton & Sanders at xi-xii. The Japanese members of the research team have published a companion piece to the book here under review: Sekinin to Batsu no ishildkozo [The Cognitive Structure of Responsibility and Punishment] (Tokyo: Taga Press, 1986). The Americans and Japanese analyzed much the same data but in different ways. The Japanese do not as explicitly relate cross-national differences in attitudinal central tendencies to differences in social structures and processes in the two societies. Moreover, the Japanese book study compares the responses of the representative samples with the responses of prison inmates, something Everyday Justice does not attempt.Google Scholar

7 Briefly, the four core stories were as follows:Google Scholar

1. Family/Equal Story (high solidarity, equal hierarchy): Twin brothers fight over a baseball bat, and in the struggle one is hit and injured.Google Scholar

2. Family/Authority Story (high solidarity, unequal hierarchy): A four-year-old child is crying and will not sleep. The child's mother goes to quiet the child and the child is then injured.Google Scholar

3. Work/Equal Story (low solidarity, equal hierarchy):A used car salesman sells a defective car to a customer, and the customer must then pay for repairs.Google Scholar

4. Work/Authority Story (low solidarity, unequal hierarchy): While working for a foreman on an assembly line a laborer is injured.Google Scholar

For more detailed descriptions of the vignettes see Hamilton & Sanders at 97-98 and app. A at 219-30.Google Scholar

8. The three stranger stories were as follows:Google Scholar

1. Child vignette: A man driving a car strikes and injures an eight-year-old child.Google Scholar

2. Adult vignette: A man driving a car strikes and injures a housewife.Google Scholar

3. Robbery vignette: A man robs a store and the store owner is shot.Google Scholar

See also Hamilton & Sanders at 98-99 & app. A at 230-33. In these stranger stories, three of the four “other” independent variables were also manipulated: mental state of actor, consequences of act, and actor's past pattern of behavior.Google Scholar

9 For a summary of all vignette versions, see Hamilton & Sanders, app. A at 219-35Google Scholar

10 For the most part, Hamilton and Sanders used standard ANOVA, regression, and logit techniques to help make their causal inferences. See at 90-92.Google Scholar

11 That is, roles and deeds interact to produce effects greater than role and deed effects taken alone.Google Scholar

12 Again, this assertion follows from their review of the secondary literature about Japanese society and culture. See esp. ch. 3.Google Scholar

13 Of course, other scholars have also documented the commitment to preserving relationships, even in the context of serious crimes. See, e.g., Vera Institute of Justice, Felony Arrests: Their Prosecution and Disposition in New York City's Courts (New York: Longman, 1981) (“Vera Institute, Felon, Arrests”)Google Scholar

14 Takeyoshi Kawashima, “Dispute Resolution in Contemporary Japan,” in A. von Mehren, ed., Law in Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963).Google Scholar

15 John O. Haley, “The Myth of the Reluctant Litigant,”. Japanese Stud. 1978, at 359-90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Anthony Platt, The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969).Google Scholar

17 Elliott Currie, Confronting Crime (New York: Pantheon, 1985), esp. ch. 5, “Inequality and Community.”Google Scholar

18 We are surely not the only ones who hope the authors will soon publish a piece describing, in more practical terms, how they conducted this research and, more particularly, what obstacles they encountered and how they overcame them. Undoubtedly, they have much to teach future generations about how, and how not, to design and conduct cross-national research of this kind.Google Scholar

19 Judith N. Shklar, The Faces of Injustice 6, 43 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990). See also Yack, 89 Mich. L. Rev. (cited in note 1).Google Scholar

20. Shklar, Faces of Injustice at 6, 43; Yack, 89 mich. L. Rev. at 1336.Google Scholar

21 See Sanders, Joseph & Hamilton, V. Lee, “Legal Cultures and Punishment Repertoires in Japan, Russia, and the United States,” 26 Law & Soc'y Rev. 117 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Id. at 117.Google Scholar

23 Hamilton and Sanders do compare the findings from the two Japanese cities. Some differences were evident (e.g., Yokohama generally assigned more responsibility to wrongdoers than did Kanazawa), though “on balance, Yokohama residents show no clear pattern of difference from Kanazawa residents in the ‘Japaneseness’ of their responsibility judgments” (that is, their use of role and context information contained in the vignettes). See at 124.Google Scholar

24 He later elaborated his points in journal articles. See Kazuhiko Ishihara, “Keibatsu no Kino Hakki to Ryokei no Tekisei” [The Functions of Punishment and the Appropriateness of Sentences], 70 Ho no Shi/uri 3 (1987). Note that if Ishihara's criticisms reflect the prevailing view among prosecutors, then that view runs counter to the reigning scholarly view that Japan is a country where benevolent officials treat criminals with rehabilitation and reintegration as their main objectives. Japanese defense lawyers have drafted a response to Ishihara. See Takashi Mikami et al., “Keiji Saiban ni okeru Ryokei no Arikata” [How Sentencing Should Be Done in Criminal Cases], 60 (no. 2) Horitsu Jiho [Current Law Review] 63-68 (1988).Google Scholar

25 While the prosecutor's criticisms were based on a study carried out by the Research and Training Institute of the Ministry of Justice, it did not do multivariate analyses to see if interregional differences remain even after employing appropriate statistical controls. See Takeo Momose et al., “Satsujin oyobi Goto-Chishi Jikenn ni miru Ryokei no Hensen to Chi-ikikan Kakusa” [Changes and Interregional Differences in Sentencing in Cases of Homicide and Robbery Resulting in Death], 30 Hotnu Sogo Kenkyujo Kenkyubu Kiyo (Annual Report of the Justice Ministry Research and Training Institute) 1 (1987).Google Scholar

26 Vera Institute, Felony Arrests (cited in note 13). See also Hans Zeisel, The Limits of Law Enforcement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).Google Scholar

27 David H. Bayley, Forces of Order: Policing Modem Japan 116 (Betkeley: University of California Press, 1991).Google Scholar

28 Id. at 116, 123.Google Scholar

29 Two types of causal relationships should be distinguished. The first (micro) concerns the relationship between individual attitudes and behaviors, while the second (macro) concerns relationships between legal cultures, as measured by the central response tendencies of ordinary people, and the operation of the formal legal system. At both levels social scientists have long debated the nature and strength of relationships between attitudes and behaviors, and hence at neither level should we assume that attitudes and behaviors closely correspond.Google Scholar

30 Foote, Daniel H., “The Benevolent Paternalism of Japanese Criminal Justice,” 80 Col. L. Rev. 317 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 John Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration 61-65 (New York: Cambridge Uni' versity Press, 1989). See also John Owen Haley, Authority without Power: Law and the Japanese Paradox 121-38 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

32 This conventional wisdom deserves careful scrutiny. Indeed, Miyazawa has argued that Japanese police may be more interested in manipulating suspects to increase the value of cases than in reforming them, that some of the features of the Japanese criminal justice system often taken as evidence of a benevolent and rehabilitative ethos may really reflect the government's failure to adequately invest in criminal justice personnel and facilities, and that there is no solid evidence that criminal justice policies contribute to Japan's relatively low crime rate. See Setsuo Miyazawa, Policing in Japan: A Study on Making Crime (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992) (“Miyazawa, Policing in Japan”); id., “The Private Sector and Law Enforcement in Japan,” in William T. Gormley, ed., Privatization and Its Alternatives 241 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991); and id., “Learning Lessons from the JapaneseGoogle Scholar

Experience in Policing and Crime: Challenges for Japanese Criminologists,” 24 Kobe U. L. Rev. 29 (1990).Google Scholar

33 Karel van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989).Google Scholar

34 On public and media attitudes toward crime and its control, see Miyazawa, Policing in Japan 227-31.Google Scholar

35 Frances A. Allen, The Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal: Penal Policy and Social Purpose (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981). See also Sheldon L. Messinger's review of Allen, , “Troubling Questions,” 81 Mich. L. Rev. 1176 (1983).Google Scholar

36 See, e.g., Robert J. Smith's Japanese Society: Tradition, Self, and the Social Order 68-105 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

37 Allen, Decline 11. Allen argues that in the United States neither of these conditions is any longer met and that this accounts for “the decline of the rehabilitative ideal.”Google Scholar

38 Of course, one may resolve this tension by rejecting the prevailing view that the Japanese criminal justice system is benevolent and reintegrative. For example, even while arguing that Japan's criminal justice system is unusually benevolent, Daniel Foote has noted (80 Cal. L. Rev. at 347-48; cited in note 27) that Japan's system of “suspension of prosecution” was first introduced as a measure to reduce the workload of the criminal justice system in a period when it had insufficient resources to prosecute all cases. Only later was the theory of “special prevention” introduced to justify the system. Eventually suspension of prosecution was institutionalized, and more or less uniform standards were developed to guide decisions about when to formally prosecute and when to suspend prosecution. More generally, one could argue that since the crime rate has remained low and stable, the Japanese public has not challenged official criminal justice practices. In spite of the lack of reliable research demonstrating the link, criminal justice officials have successfully claimed that their policies are the primary cause of those low and stable crime rates. Police, prosecutors, and corrections officials all work within this context. They perceive the lenience or harshness of the treatment of offenders in light of historically constructed “market values” for similar offenders and cases. This point, however, is largely speculation. The whole issue needs to be carefully investigated.Google Scholar

39 Jules S. Coleman, Markets, Morals and the Law ch. 9 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

40 Frank K. Upham, Law and Social Change in Postwar Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

41 Miyazawa, Setsuo, “Administrative Control of Japanese Judges,” 25 Kobe U.L. Rev. 000 (1991).Google Scholar

42 Robert L. Kidder Si John A. Hostetler, “Managing Ideologies: Harmony as Ideology in Amish and Japanese Societies,” in 24 Law & Society Review 895 (1990).Google Scholar

43 Setsuo Miyazawa, “Taking Kawashima Seriously: A Review of Japanese Research on Japanese Legal Consciousness and Disputing Behavior,” 21 Law & Soc'y Rev. 219, 229 (1987).Google Scholar

44 Kawashima describes how rights help to define relationships and resolve disputes.Google Scholar