Black Files: Too Young to Punish — Japan's Juvenile Law on Trial

Black Torii — Japanese True Crime · Jul 30, 2026 · 1h 6m

Japan's Juvenile Law was written in 1948. It was built on a simple premise: a child who commits a crime is still a child, and the state's job is to rehabilitate rather than to punish. For decades, that premise held. Then came a run of cases that tested it until it broke. These five cases span sixteen years, and every one of them was committed by someone the law considered a minor. In November 1988, seventeen-year-old Junko Furuta was abducted in Saitama and held for forty-four days in a house in Adachi Ward, Tokyo. Her killers were teenagers. They pleaded guilty not to murder but to…