Japan's Ministry of Justice plans to start a trial next year in which sex offenders out on parole are given GPS devices to carry. I counted 2,189 comments: 96 to 4, and 305 of them, 47 percent of the vote, said consent should not come into it at all. First place took 7,810 presses, 30 percent of the vote. That a device you carry can simply be left at home was said by 261 comments, 16 percent; implant it in the body was said by 462, one comment in five, but took only 3 percent of the vote
96 to 4, and 47 percent of the vote went to comments saying consent should not come into it. First place took 7,810 presses, 30 percent. A device you carry can be left at home, said 261 comments, 16 percent; implant it in the body, said 462, one comment in five, but they took 3 percent of the vote. Do not grant parole at all, 158 comments and 18 percent. Comments asking for something stronger than the plan came to 1,191, 54 percent of the thread and 74 percent of the vote. Comments on the offender's side, or urging caution, came to 25, with 10 presses between them.
How the votes fell
Ranked by upvotes. Left of the slash is agree, right is disagree. This is where the resentment actually sits.
- 1st 7810 ∕ 217 it had heard that education does little to prevent reoffending; fit the device by force so that the people around can protect themselves, which would do more to deter crime than to prevent repeat offences; asked whether this debate is being conducted mainly by men; said it cannot understand protecting the offender this far; and said that sexual violence is called the murder of the soul, so publishing names and faces, and other measures aimed at stopping crimes before they happen, should be considered
- 2nd 3623 ∕ 43 what it would want is for the offender first to be physically made unable to do it, then to serve the full sentence, and then to be managed by GPS on release; only with all that does it feel slightly safer, because it does not believe a sex offender can be rehabilitated
- 3rd 2495 ∕ 37 if the aim is to prevent reoffending, GPS tracking could be made a good deal more compulsory; basing it on the consent of someone who has served a prison sentence will not produce a measure that works; to protect victims it should be made a duty, with no right of refusal and a fitted device that cannot be taken off; and the system should put the safety of victims and of society first
- 4th 2032 ∕ 60 it still remembers, out of nowhere, the first time it was groped; it could do nothing and could tell no one, and anger at itself kept it awake at night; people who suffered far worse must be suffering more; victims go on suffering afterwards, so why can the offender not manage even something as small as wearing a GPS device to make sure it never happens again
- 5th 1200 ∕ 20 asked whether the rights of a person who will be scarred for life by a sexual assault and the rights of a person who will offend again to satisfy themselves should really be protected equally; said sex offences have a high rate of reoffending, and that protecting the offender and adding to the number of victims must not happen; and asked for the law to be changed soon
I read all 2,189 top-level comments. This is the thread 19 hours after the story went up, at 4:39 on the morning of 13 September 2026. I relate was pressed 25,887 times and hmm 1,045 times: 96 to 4. The previous note, 0044, was 83 to 17, 0043 was 94 to 6, 0042 and 0041 were 95 to 5 and 0039 was 85 to 15, so among the last five this is the most one-sided thread. The top 10 comments took 80 percent of the vote and the top 20 took 90 percent; the first-placed comment alone took 7,810 presses, 30 percent, and the top two together took 44 percent. Of the 2,189 comments, 1,356, 62 percent, received no I relate at all, and 1,877, 86 percent, received one or none. Comments where hmm outnumbered I relate numbered 122, 6 percent. The most hmm presses, 217, went to the first-placed comment, 21 percent of all the hmm presses in the thread; then 60 to fourth place, 43 to second, and 39 to the comment in 115th, the only one of those four that argues the minority case, that a device fixed to the body would get in the way of rebuilding a life. Replies followed the same shape: 163 on first place, far ahead of 43 on second, 29 on fourth and 23 on third. Now the substance. Comments saying the device should be compulsory rather than consented to numbered 305 and took 12,108 presses, 47 percent; first, third, ninth, 14th and 15th place are here. Comments arguing for a fitted device that cannot be removed numbered 347, 6,678 presses, 26 percent. Comments saying it should be implanted in the body numbered 462, one comment in five, but drew only 858 presses, 3 percent; nearly all were a line or two with no votes. Comments pointing out that a carried device can be left at home, thrown away, or used to manufacture an alibi numbered 261, 4,129 presses, 16 percent. Comments saying parole should not be granted at all, or that sentences should be far heavier, numbered 158, 4,543 presses, 18 percent; third, sixth and ninth place are here. Counted together without double-counting, comments asking for something stronger than the plan, whether compulsion, a fitted device, an implant, rejection of the carried device, no parole, physical measures or a visible mark, came to 1,191 comments, 54 percent of the thread and 74 percent of the vote. Comments saying sex offences have a high rate of reoffending, or that offenders cannot be cured or rehabilitated, numbered 221, 8,559 presses, 33 percent. Four comments questioned that premise itself, saying that theft has the highest reoffending rate, or that studies across several countries have not confirmed any effect from GPS; all four received no votes at all. Comments using the word rights numbered 441, 20 percent, and 5,310 presses, 21 percent. Comments saying victims and ordinary citizens should be protected first and the offender's rights come second numbered 217, 4,137 presses, 16 percent, and comments calling Japan soft on criminals numbered 152, 1,393 presses, 5 percent. Comments containing the word deterrence numbered 103, 9,641 presses, 37 percent; first place is here. Comments doubting that GPS would prevent anything numbered 192, 2,375 presses, 9 percent. Comments raising castration or surgical measures numbered 158, 7 percent, but drew only 207 presses, 0.8 percent. Comments asking for a visible mark, a tattoo or a collar, numbered 53, 201 presses, 0.8 percent. Comments about publishing names, faces or locations numbered 64, 8,413 presses, 33 percent, but 7,810 of those presses belong to the first-placed comment alone. Comments citing other countries numbered 140, 2,210 presses, 9 percent, of which 35 mentioned South Korea, 113 presses. Comments about wrongful conviction numbered 28, 567 presses, 2 percent; comments attacking lawyers or rights campaigners numbered 68, 50 presses, 0.2 percent; comments about tax and the budget numbered 39, 102 presses, 0.4 percent; comments asking who would actually watch the data numbered 64, 211 presses, 0.8 percent. Comments saying it should be extended to other offenders numbered 88, 705 presses, 3 percent; comments about stalking numbered 96, 439 presses, 2 percent; comments about children numbered 72, 1,040 presses, 4 percent. Comments about treatment or counselling numbered 34, 571 presses, 2 percent. Comments describing sexual violence suffered by the writer or their family numbered only eight, but took 2,279 presses between them, 9 percent of the vote; fourth place is here. Comments mentioning remorse numbered 38, 126 presses, 0.5 percent, and the Japanese phrase for assuming people are good at heart appeared in nine comments, five presses. Comments mentioning foreigners or other countries' nationals numbered 31, 14 presses, 0.1 percent; I give the count and do not quote them. Finally, checking my own reading. That Japan assumes people are good at heart: the phrase itself appeared nine times, but the substance is the thread's mainstream, in the 261 comments saying the device would simply be left behind and the 305 comments, 47 percent of the vote, saying consent should not be sought. A hit. That saying sorry guarantees a lighter sentence: comments about remorse numbered 38, 0.5 percent, and comments about light sentences or harsher punishment 35, 2.5 percent; the thread looked past the courtroom to what happens after release. Half a hit. That behaving well in prison proves nothing: comments saying parole should not be granted at all numbered 158, 18 percent, including those asking why someone who needs a GPS tracker is being released as no longer likely to reoffend. A hit. That Japan looks after the offender: comments calling Japan soft numbered 152, comments putting victims first 217 and 16 percent of the vote, and comments using the word rights 441, one in five. A hit. Three hits and one half. Two passages of my own words are not reproduced in the text, under this site's rule about language that condemns whole groups of people.
What happened
At 9:30 on the morning of Saturday 12 September 2026, Bengoshi.com News published this story on Yahoo! News Japan. People on parole after sex offences are to be given GPS devices so that their location can be tracked: the Ministry of Justice is reported to have decided to begin a trial of this next financial year. The trial is to be based on the person's own consent, and according to the Yomiuri Shimbun the device is expected to be one that is carried rather than fixed to the body. According to TV Asahi, those under consideration are people on parole and people given suspended sentences with probation. The article then puts the plan to a lawyer who works on criminal cases.
A few words for readers outside Japan. Parole here means releasing a prisoner before the end of their sentence, once they have served part of it and are judged to show remorse (article 28 of the Penal Code); whether they are likely to offend again is also weighed. Conditions are set for the period outside, and breaking them, or committing a new offence, sends the person back to prison. A suspended sentence with probation means the person does not go to prison at all but lives for a set period under the supervision of a probation officer. The Ministry of Justice is the government department responsible for prisons and parole, and a trial of this kind is a small-scale test run before anything is written into law. The publisher, Bengoshi.com News, is an outlet that covers legal affairs; its name means lawyer dot com.
The lawyer quoted in the article sets out both sides. Knowing you are being watched has a deterrent effect, and there are studies abroad reporting a fall in reoffending under GPS monitoring. On the other hand, continuous tracking of where a person is intrudes on their privacy, and a device visible to the people around them amounts to a label that can block their return to ordinary life. The lawyer then lists four things to watch. First, if not consenting means parole is refused, can that really be called free consent. Second, why a carried device rather than a fitted one. Third, who is covered: for stalking, the article suggests giving a matching device to the person at risk, so that a warning is triggered when the other comes within a set distance. Fourth, if reoffending falls, can that be credited to GPS at all, since the result depends entirely on what it is compared against. If the measure is to become permanent, the article adds, it would be better to define the device explicitly as a form of punishment and let a court decide case by case, as it already does for the tracking terminals used to stop defendants on bail from fleeing the country (Code of Criminal Procedure, article 98-12 onwards).
My reading
Reading the story, this is what I wrote.
Japan assumes, always, that people are good at heart.
Commit a crime, then say you regret it, say you never meant it, and a lighter sentence is guaranteed.
Keep your head down in prison — and in a Japan this full of pressure to conform, of course you keep your head down in prison, and of course you behave when a police officer is standing right in front of you [...] so of course doing this changes nothing.
No wonder the resentment builds.
The passage I have cut from the third line is a phrase condemning the people of this country as a whole. This site has a rule that language condemning a whole group of people is not reproduced in the text, and the rule applies to my own words as well. For the same reason I have left out, in full, a sentence that came next about how foreign nationals are treated. The fourth line, about resentment, follows on from that cut sentence. I note here that both were cut.
Put briefly, my reading is four claims. Japan thinks too well of people. Say you are sorry and your sentence gets lighter. Deciding release on whether someone behaved in prison proves nothing. Japan takes better care of the person who committed the crime. Whether those four turn up in 2,189 comments is what I check at the end.
96 to 4, from 2,189 comments, 19 hours in
I counted at 4:39 on the morning of 13 September, 19 hours after the story went up. There were 2,189 top-level comments, out of 2,942 comments in total. I relate had been pressed 25,887 times and hmm 1,045 times: 96 to 4. The previous note, 0044, was 83 to 17, 0043 was 94 to 6, 0042 and 0041 were 95 to 5 and 0039 was 85 to 15, so among the last five this is the most one-sided thread I have counted.
One-sided does not mean everyone said the same thing. The thread was not divided over whether to track offenders; it was united in saying that the plan is too soft. Counted without double-counting, comments asking for something stronger than the plan — make it compulsory, fix it to the body, implant it, do not release them in the first place — came to 1,191, 54 percent of the thread and 74 percent of the vote. The article worried about the burden on the offender. The thread stood on the far side of that worry.
A note on how the votes fell. The top 10 comments took 80 percent, the top 20 took 90 percent, the first-placed comment alone took 7,810 presses, 30 percent, and the top two together took 44 percent. Of the 2,189 comments, 1,356, 62 percent, received no I relate at all. The most hmm presses also went to first place, 217 of them, 21 percent of all the hmm in the thread. The most-pressed comment was also the most pushed back against. Replies fell the same way: 163 on first place, then 43, 29 and 23 on second, fourth and third. Past the top twenty the thread goes quiet — 1,877 comments, 86 percent of them, carry one press or none — so almost everything below is worth reading as two numbers at once: how many people wrote it, and how many people pressed it. Where those two numbers disagree, as they do sharply further down this page, that gap is itself the finding.
First place: fit it by force
Wasn't education shown to do little to stop reoffending? I think the only way is to fit the device by force so that the people around them can protect themselves. That looks more likely to deter crime than to prevent repeat offences. Is this being debated mainly by men? I cannot understand protecting the offender this far. Sexual violence is called the murder of the soul. Publish their names and faces: think about what deters a crime before it happens, rather than only about repeat offences.
教育で再犯防止の効果が低いんじゃなかった?強制的に身に着けさせて周囲が自分で身を守るしかないと思う。再犯よりも犯罪抑止に効果がありそう。
男性メインで議論されているのでしょうか。
ここまで加害者を守る事が理解できない。
性被害は魂の殺人と言われています。名前と顔を公表するとか、再犯防止よりも犯罪が起きないように抑止になることを考えて欲しい。First place, 7,810 presses, 30 percent of the vote. Its four lines say four different things. Education does not work. Fit the device by force so that other people can protect themselves. This discussion seems to be led by men. Publish names and faces if that is what it takes to stop a crime before rather than after. It also drew 163 replies, far more than any other comment, and 217 hmm presses, also the most in the thread. I suspect the line about names and faces is what drew the pushback along with the support.
Third place: consent gets in the way
If we are thinking about preventing people from offending again, surely GPS tracking could be made a good deal more compulsory. For someone who has committed a crime and served a sentence, basing it on their own consent will not, I feel, produce a measure that actually works. To protect victims, surely we need something strong: make GPS a duty, give no right of refusal, and require a fitted device that cannot be taken off the body. So that there is no next victim, I want a system that works and that puts the safety of victims and of society first.
性犯罪などの再犯防止を考えるなら、GPSによる位置確認はもっと強制力のある制度にしてもいいのではないでしょうか。犯罪を犯して服役した人に対して、本人の同意を前提にしていては、実効性のある対策にはならない気がします。
被害者を守るためには、GPSを義務化し、拒否権を与えず、体から外せない装着型を義務化するくらいの強い措置が必要ではないでしょうか。
次の被害者を出さないためにも、被害者や社会の安全を守ることを最優先とした実効性のある制度にしてほしいです。Third place, 2,495 presses. The first thing the article warned about was that refusing the device might cost someone their parole, which would make the consent a formality. The thread looked at exactly the same point from the opposite side: basing it on consent is what stops it working, so take the right of refusal away. Comments saying the device should be compulsory rather than consented to numbered 305 and took 12,108 presses, 47 percent of the vote. First, third, ninth, 14th and 15th place are all here. The article and the thread agreed on which point mattered most, and answered it in opposite directions.
A device you can leave at home
The most concrete thing the thread repeated was that a device you carry can be left at home: 261 comments, 4,129 presses, 16 percent of the vote. Leave it behind, throw it away, slip it into someone else's bag, tie it to a stray cat, put it on the dog. The wording varied; the point did not. And many of them carried the same thought one step further: the record would then show the person at home all evening, so the device would not merely fail, it would supply an alibi.
The article raised the same question — why a carried device rather than a fitted one — as its second point to watch. Here the thread and the lawyer face the same way. The thread went one step further, though: this will not measure whether reoffending falls, it will measure how often the device gets left behind.
Implant it, said 462 comments — one in five, and 3 percent of the vote
Comments saying the device should be implanted in the body numbered 462, one in every five of the 2,189. Between them they drew 858 presses, 3 percent of the vote. Reading through them explains why. Almost all of the 462 are a line or two long: not carry it, implant it; carrying is not the word, embedding is. Very many people said the same short thing, and almost none of them were voted for. Count comments and you measure the mood of a thread; count presses and you measure what it agrees on. The same thread gives two different pictures.
The votes went to the other version of the argument, the one that gave reasons: make it a fitted device that cannot be removed, 347 comments, 6,678 presses, 26 percent. Comments raising castration or surgical measures numbered 158, 7 percent of the thread, but drew 207 presses, 0.8 percent, and again these were mostly a line long. Comments asking for a visible mark, a tattoo or a collar, numbered 53, 201 presses, 0.8 percent. I give the counts and do not quote them.
Eight comments about being a victim took 9 percent of the vote
The first time I was groped still comes back to me out of nowhere. A hand went inside my jeans, taking hold of my backside and my legs. Even then I could do nothing, and I could tell no one. Anger at myself for doing nothing kept me awake at night. People who suffered far worse than I did must be carrying far more. You may forget for long stretches and then have it come back in a moment. Victims go on suffering afterwards, so why is the offender unable to manage even something as small as wearing a GPS device so that it never happens to anyone again? It would help them live as a person, too.
初めて痴漢に遭った時のことを、私は今でも突然思い出します。デニムの中にまで手を入れられ、お尻や足をつかまれた。それでも何もできず、誰にも話せなかった。何もできなかった自分への怒りで、夜眠れなくなることもありました。
私よりはるかに重い被害を受けた方々は、もっと苦しい思いをしているはずです。普段は忘れていても、ふとした瞬間にフラッシュバックすることもあるでしょう。
被害者はその後も苦しみ続けるのに、なぜ加害者は、二度と被害を起こさないためにGPSをつける程度のことすらできないのでしょうか。それが本人が人らしく生きていける事にも繋がるのに。Fourth place, 2,032 presses. Comments describing sexual violence suffered by the writer or by their own family numbered eight out of 2,189. Between them they took 2,279 presses, 9 percent of the vote. This one accounts for 2,032 of those, but the other seven carry short accounts too: groped as a student and frightened of anyone walking towards them ever since; another whose assailant is now serving a sentence for a fourth offence. Four-tenths of one percent of the comments took nine percent of the vote. Nothing shows more plainly where this thread put its weight. The comment ends by saying that wearing the device would help the offender live as a person as well.
The comment I shared on X came seventh
Anything they can take off themselves is pointless, I think. And sex offenders will use any means at all to get what they want; they have no reason left in them to think about what comes after. Sex offences have a high rate of repetition, so they should be housed in a prison-like facility, a rehabilitation centre for sex offenders only, and those who want to work can go out to work from there. Sex offenders have human rights too, but I do not think they should be given an environment in which they can walk around freely.
自力で取り外せるような物は意味がないと思います。それに性犯罪者は目的を達成するためなら、どんな手段も使いますし後先を考える理性なんか持っていません。
性犯罪は再犯率が高いので、性犯罪者だけを収容する刑務所のようや更生施設に入所させ、働きたい者はそこから働きに行けばいいのです。
性犯罪者にも人権はありますが、自由に外を歩ける環境を与えるべきではないと思います。This is the comment I shared on X as soon as I had read the story. When I counted, it stood seventh, with 753 presses, 3 percent of the vote, 20 hmm and four replies. Last time the comment I shared stood second with 22 percent of the vote, so this is a good deal further down the page (that one is in Why the bus shouted). It says what the thread's mainstream says — a device you can remove is pointless — and then goes one step past it: rather than release them, house them somewhere of their own and let those who want to work go out to work. It grants that sex offenders have rights before saying they should not be free to walk around. Within this thread, that counts as carefully put.
The minority side: 39 presses of hmm
A lot of people seem to want a fitted device that cannot be removed, but if this is to prevent reoffending, the person needs to get to a settled life as soon as possible. So with a fitted device that cannot be removed, the moment a colleague at work asks what that thing is, they have nowhere left to stand, and in daily life too there will be people who know what the device is. Fitting it where clothes hide it is, of course, entirely fine by me.
取り外せない装着型が良いとの意見が多いみたいですが、再犯防止につながるようにするためには安定した生活をいち早く送らなければなりません。
なので取り外せない装着型にしてしまうと仕事先の同僚からも｢それ何つけてるん？｣と言われれば居場所が無くなってしまうだろうし、普段の生活でもその装置が何なのか知っている人も出てくるでしょう。
もちろん服を着ていれば見えないところに装着するのは全然アリだと思います。115th place, three presses of I relate and 39 of hmm: the fourth largest pile of hmm in the thread. It takes the labelling problem the article described and puts it in the language of an ordinary week — a colleague asks what that is, and there is nowhere left to stand. It then gives ground, saying a device hidden under clothes would be fine. It was still pushed back against 39 times.
Counting by hand, comments that took the offender's side or urged caution about how this is done came to 25. Between them they drew 10 presses of I relate. Studies abroad have not confirmed an effect from GPS; the highest rate of reoffending belongs to theft; what about people wrongly convicted; after sex offenders it will be some other group. Every one of them sat at nought or one. That is the shape of the four in 96 to 4.
Counted, not quoted
Comments mentioning foreigners or other countries' nationals numbered 31 and drew 14 presses between them, 0.1 percent of the vote. I count them and do not quote them. Comments attacking lawyers or rights campaigners numbered 68, 50 presses, 0.2 percent; comments attacking politicians or officials numbered 96, 139 presses, 0.5 percent. The 158 comments about castration and the 53 asking for a visible mark are counted here and not quoted either.
Four comments questioned the premise that sex offences have a uniquely high rate of reoffending: theft is highest and drugs second; reoffending among those who served prison terms is in fact low; research across several countries has not confirmed an effect from GPS. All four received no votes at all. Comments asserting the opposite, that the rate is high and offenders cannot be cured, numbered 221 and took 8,559 presses, 33 percent. The article, for its part, reports the lawyer saying there are studies abroad that found a fall in reoffending. I have not checked either figure myself, so what I record here is only how many times the thread said it.
The article's four questions, answered by the thread
First, whether consent becomes coercion in practice: 305 comments and 47 percent of the vote answered that consent should not be sought at all. Second, why a carried device: 261 comments, 16 percent, answered that it can be left at home. That is the one place where the thread and the lawyer face the same way. Third, who should be covered: 88 comments, 3 percent, said extend it to other offenders, 96 comments, 2 percent, wrote about stalking, and some picked up the lawyer's suggestion of giving a matching device to the person at risk. Fourth, whether any effect could be credited to GPS: 192 comments, 9 percent, doubted the effect, but their reason was not that the comparison would be weak; it was that the device would not be carried, so there would be nothing to measure. Comments asking who would watch the data around the clock numbered 64, 0.8 percent.
The lawyer set out those four as things to be careful about before going ahead. The thread read all four as things to be careful about in order to go harder. Same sheet of paper, seen from the other side.
Checking my own reading
Japan assumes people are good at heart. The Japanese phrase for that appeared in only nine comments, five presses. The substance, though, is the thread's mainstream: he will not carry it, he will refuse if you ask him, do not build a system on a criminal's good faith. The 261 comments about the device being left at home and the 305 comments, 47 percent of the vote, about consent are saying exactly this in other words. A hit.
Say you are sorry and your sentence gets lighter. Comments mentioning remorse numbered 38, 126 presses, 0.5 percent, and comments about light sentences or harsher punishment 35, 648 presses, 2.5 percent. The thread was looking past the courtroom to what happens after release. Half a hit.
Behaving well in prison proves nothing. Comments saying parole should not be granted at all numbered 158, 4,543 presses, 18 percent; third, sixth and ninth place are here. Several made the point sharply: parole is supposed to mean no likelihood of reoffending, so why does this person need tracking. On distrust of the release test itself, a hit.
No wonder the resentment builds. Comments calling Japan soft on criminals numbered 152, 1,393 presses, 5 percent; comments saying victims and ordinary citizens come first numbered 217, 4,137 presses, 16 percent; and comments using the word rights numbered 441, one in five of the thread. The resentment in this thread gathers at a single point: that the offender's rights are the better protected. A hit.
Three hits and one half. One more thing to set down: two passages of my own words, one condemning the people of this country as a whole and one about how foreign nationals are treated, are not reproduced in this text, under the rule I described above.
Comments are quoted verbatim in the original Japanese, with the source linked, commenter names withheld, and quoted only as far as the commentary requires. Translations are mine. Source articles may expire (retrieval dates noted). The substance of this piece is the author's commentary.