Japan’s prisons " Eastern porridge " Even Japanese criminals are orderly & well-behaved

The Economist ^ | 2/23/2013

[sushiman]

No cable tv...no Helal meals ...no internet / computers ..etc...

[Southack]

Beating innocent civilians for 23 days into finally “confessing” is not progress.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Meh. I'm pretty could hold up for 23 days. And my advantage? I could cuss them out in Japanese in several colorful dialects to boot. Its all mind over matter anyways and nowadays generally they are limited to getting in your face like a drill seargent and screaming at the tops of their lungs, then bringing in a "good cop" to wear down your resolve and have you bond with him and spill the beans. There is no waterboarding or outright heavy physical violence. Maybe a slap here or there. Certainly nothing like electrodes to the testes, etc.

There are ways around these people. Folks like Paul McCartney were not trained in POW-like condition(s) training, and accordingly panicked and broke resolve easily (I think after day two or three or so) as I recall, circa 1980.

[PowderMonkey]

Sure beats doing 25 to life in the Black Dolphin.