16.5 per cent in Japan want death penalty abolished: Survey

On the reason for the view, with multiple answers allowed, 71.0 % said that executions cannot be reversed even if an error has been found.

The results may have been affected by the case of Iwao Hakamata, who was sentenced to death but was acquitted last year in his retrial for the 1966 murder of four people in Shizuoka Prefecture.

The share of respondents who described executions as irreversible was the highest since the government first asked questions on the issue in a similar survey in 1994.

Meanwhile, 83.1 % of all respondents said that the death penalty system is "unavoidable." Of them, a record 62.2 % said that if the system is scrapped, the feelings of bereaved families of crime victims cannot settle. An answer that vicious crimes should be paid for with life was chosen by 55.5 %, while 53.4 % said that such crimes would increase without the death penalty system.

The strong support for the system may stem from spreading concerns about public safety, possibly affected by crimes such as robberies by people attracted to "yami baito" illegal casual jobs offered online.

The survey on basic legal systems, conducted every five years, was carried out by mail from Oct. 24 to Dec. 1 last year with 3,000 people aged 18 or over across Japan. Of them, 60.5 % gave valid responses.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]

Photo by Reuters