世論 What Japan Thinks

Japan has one of the lowest rates of autopsies in the developed world, with a mere one in ten deaths resulting in one, so to find out more about people’s opinions this survey by the Cabinet Office Japan took a look at the prevention of overlooking suspicious deaths.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 25th of July 2010 3,000 members of the public over the age of twenty selected at random from residency registers were approached for face-to-face interviews. Of the 3,000, 1,913 or 63.8% were successfully interviewed. However, no demographic information was given, although as with all Cabinet Office Japan surveys, they tend to attract much older people than the usual internet-based questionnaires.

I think it’s fair enough to assume that the police are relatively happy with the current state of affairs – writing things off as suicides (if you’re going to push someone off a building, take their shoes off first and line them up neatly afterwards) or accidental deaths keeps the crime rate and the paperwork down, but having said that, I feel that even if they did do more autopsies the Japan murder rate would still be one of the lowest in the world.

Note that as described in the text for Q2, the word that translates to “autopsy” means just an external examination. A further word in Q4 also translates to “autopsy”, but is further defined as the disection kind of forensic autopsy, the kind that most English speakers will associate with the word “autopsy”.

Research results

Q1: If one of your family members were to die, would you want to know the cause of death? (Sample size=1,913)

Yes	88.0%
Perhaps	8.7%
Perhaps not	0.8%
No	1.5%
Don’t know	0.9%

Next, people were shown a card with the following text:

“In Japan, when someone dies, according to the law a death notification must be submitted within seven days. Attached to the death notification must be either a death certificate or a post-mortem certificate. Usually, when someone dies in hospital a doctor produces a death certificate; in all other cases the police are notified, and they request a doctor produce a post-mortem certificate.

In the second case, in order for the police to determine whether the death was a suspicious death, they may examine the external state of the body in an ‘autopsy’.”

Q2: Did you know that the police handled most of the corpses of those who died outside of hospitals? (Sample size=1,913)

Yes	82.0%
No	18.0%

Next, people were shown a card with the following text:

“In the last 10 years (from 2000-2009) the police have performed around 1.4 million autopsies. From those judged not to be suspicious deaths, later in about 20 cases a suspect confessed, etc, and they were reclassified as possible murders, etc.”

Q3: Did you know that there has been overlooked suspicious deaths? (Sample size=1,913)

Yes	51.2%
No	48.8%

Next, people were shown a card with the following text:

“For nearly all the bodies that the police determine not to be suspicious deaths, forensic autopsy, etc to clearly determine the cause of death does not take place. However, in Tokyo city and some other regions where the cause of death is not clear a coroner will perform a forensic autopsy.”

Q4: Do you think that in order to prevent the overlooking of suspicious deaths it is necessary to increase the number of opportunities for forensic autopsies? (Sample size=1,913)

Necessary	52.5%
Perhaps necessary	32.8%
Perhaps not necessary	5.5%
Not necessary	3.5%
Don’t know	5.8%

Q5: If a member of your family were to die and the police decide it was not a suspicious death but the cause of death was not clearly known, regardless of the opinion of your bereaved family a forensic autopsy was to be carried out, would you feel opposed to it? (Sample size=1,913)

Opposed	34.3%
Somewhat opposed	30.9%
Not really opposed	14.0%
Not opposed at all	17.0%
Don’t know	3.7%