In June 2021, Katsuyuki Kawai was sentenced to three years in prison and fined ¥1.3 million for violating the Fair Elections Law after a judge determined he had bought votes for his wife, Anri, when she was running in the 2019 upper house election in Hiroshima as a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, a seat she won. At the time, Kawai, also an LDP member, was not only a sitting lawmaker himself, but the Minister of Justice, having been appointed to the post by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Following the vote-buying allegations he resigned as justice minister, and in June 2020 was arrested along with his wife, who quit the Diet in February 2021. Katsuyuki quit two months later.
On Nov. 29, 2023, Kawai was released on parole. He recently published a book about his time at Sakura Prison in Tochigi Prefecture, making the most of the fact that he is the first justice minister to ever be locked up. In recent weeks, he’s been making the media rounds to promote Prison Diary: The Justice Minister Who Went to Jail, and the coverage has not only been non-judgmental, it’s often been light and lively. A good example is his appearance on Abema TV’s “Abema Teki News Show,” which went as far as dramatizing several prison anecdotes described in the book. What was different, even refreshing, about the presentation is that Kawai seemed to have learned a lot about prison life that most politicians, including those interested in legal matters, would probably prefer not to have to talk about, and that such knowledge should be standard for the person who is essentially the highest ranking law enforcement official in the country, even if, practically speaking, most of the people appointed to that job aren’t really qualified to do anything except rubber stamp pronouncements from the bureaucracy or the ruling party’s leadership.
Even Kawai’s overall assessment of the purpose of his imprisonment was startling, given that he was once a firebrand for the LDP and martyred himself for the sake of the party: It’s generally believed that the crime for which he was convicted amounted to following orders from his superiors, including Abe. At the beginning of his interview on Abema TV, he said that the facility where he was incarcerated is not referred to officially as a “prison,” but rather as a “center to promote rehabilitation,” a term that made him laugh since he received absolutely no instruction that could help him “reenter society.”
Most of the assigned work, for instance, was pointless in that no skills were transferred that might be useful on the outside. His first job was folding origami cranes (orizuru) for some private company, a task he never got the hang of. He was then sent to the prison library, where his main job was to inspect books donated for the prisoners’ use. Most were old and damaged, so he repaired them with glue and cellophane tape. He worked eight-hour days, Monday through Thursday. Friday was “instruction day,” when he was supposed to learn about the errors of his ways and how to be a good citizen, but most of it involved watching boilerplate videos, usually NHK programs. He then was told to write about the instruction as it applied to his own situation, an assignment that never made sense to him. Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays were free days during which he could do anything he wanted, but as he pointed out, most prisoners just slept because there were few options available and it was always cold, so instead of sitting around on the frigid floor (there were no chairs or beds) it was easier and more comfortable to just wrap up as best you could in the futon.
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