Nagoya Prison Officers to be Referred over Assaults of Inmates

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:54 JST, April 27, 2023

NAGOYA — Nagoya Prison has decided to send the papers of more than a dozen of its 22 correctional officers who allegedly repeatedly assaulted inmates to prosecutors, according to sources.

The Justice Ministry is expected to announce that the prison will also take disciplinary action in connection with the referral of the officers to the Nagoya District Public Prosecutors Office on suspicion of criminal assault or humiliation by a law enforcement officer and other suspected crimes.

The abuse came to light after a male inmate in his 60s, who was injured near his left eyelid, stated that he had been assaulted by a correctional officer when questioned by the prison about what had happened to him in late August 2022.

The 22 officers at the prison assaulted three men, including the inmate in question, in their 40s to 60s between November 2021 and August 2022 by spraying their faces with sanitizer and slapping them in the face, according to investigations by the ministry and other organizations.

The correctional officers also verbally abused the three and otherwise treated them inappropriately.

A total of 421 cases of assault and improper treatment by all 22 officers have been reported. The prison has decided to send papers against the dozen or so who were involved in highly malicious acts, according to the sources.

One of the officers is suspected of grabbing an inmate in his 60s by the chest from outside the cell, inflicting physical injury that took him five days to recover from, they said.

“We committed the acts because they did not follow the instructions and started yelling,” one of the correctional officers in question said.