Japanese laws are very different —after your initial arrest they can hold you with NO CHARGES FILED for up to 24 days, I believe, and they are relentlessly interrogating you that whole time.
The pressure is intense, and there are many cases of innocent people confessing to crimes they were innocent of.
The conviction rate in Japan is over 99%.
The emphasis on confessions in Japan is excessive.
Did you know that in Japan there is no obligation for the jailers to even INFORM your family that you have been executed? It is always by hanging.
It is common for them to answer all inquiries about the prisoner with, “He is busy” or “He is unavailable” —for months they will do that, sometimes for years.
Daily life in a Japanese prison is much more highly regimented than would be believed here, I think. It is mostly clean and meals are regular, but there is a very high emphasis on conformity to regimentation —something that is already stressed in ordinary “over-the-wall” Japanese society.
Non-Japanese who emerge alive from the system (almost always followed by swift deportation) are described as unbelievable polite, and utterly transformed.