Inside Japan’s biggest prison: home to yakuza… and hundreds of old men

With its glass frontage and portico, Fuchū prison could be mistaken for a local government office. Inside, visitors enter an airy reception area where a banner declares support for the local football team, FC Tokyo.

But stepping through a heavy, guarded door reveals that this is unmistakably a place of incarceration. Its walls house 1,700 inmates, including a large number serving sentences of less than 10 years but who, in the words of the prison literature, have “advanced criminal tendencies”.

The atmosphere is one of calm and order: cells with neatly folded bedding, piles of books and spotless mint-green walls. The silence is broken by the sound of a guard greeting the prison’s chief, Hiroyuki Yashiro, as he chaperones a small number of media organisations, including the Observer , that have been granted rare access to the frontline of Japan’s criminal justice system.

About a third of the men imprisoned at Fuchū, Japan’s biggest prison, have links to the yakuza – Japan’s crime syndicates. They are easy to spot, sporting elaborate, sprawling tattoos only partly concealed by regulation white vests.

But it is hard to imagine many of them chasing their nemeses through the streets of Tokyo, roughing up business owners for protection money or going head-to-head with members of a rival gang. Like many of the inmates here, they have long since entered the twilight of their criminal careers.

The proportion of foreign inmates at Fuchū, in Tokyo’s western suburbs, has risen slightly due to a drop in the size of the overall prison population but, according to Yashiro, the biggest challenge comes from its large and growing population of older men – a criminal cohort that reflects wider demographic trends in Japan, where almost a third of the 125 million population is aged 65 or over.

In Fuchū, 22% of inmates fit into that age bracket, bringing with them needs that can give the prison the feel of a care home, from the specially appointed wet rooms to the nursing care qualifications younger inmates acquire to look after their older counterparts and, perhaps, use to find a job after release.

“Some of the older men struggle to walk or bathe unaided and have to take medication, so that is why we get younger men to help them,” says Yashiro, adding that more than 70% of older inmates require treatment for chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease and mental health conditions.

The age gap is visible in the prison’s workshops. In one, younger men spend eight hours a day making bags and T-shirts, learning car maintenance, printing pamphlets or manning the kitchens and laundry facilities. In another, however, older men are given no more demanding a task than to assemble plastic laundry pegs to improve their strength and manual dexterity.

Fuchū’s most famous in­mates include Kenichi Shi­noda , the octogenarian head of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s most powerful crime syndicate, and Michael Tay­lor, the ex-US Green Beret who helped Carlos Ghosn flee Japan in 2019.

Taylor, who served just over a year of his sentence at Fuchū before being transferred to prison in the US, has spoken since his release of the harsh conditions: extreme temperatures, a lack of water, and a long list of rules and regulations – applicable to all inmates irrespective of age – that include not speaking to fellow prisoners during work or meals, having to sit a certain way for long periods in their cells, limited visiting rights and just 30 minutes of exercise a day.

TV viewing is monitored and rationed, although Fuchū’s 370 ­foreign inmates have access to English- and Chinese-language radio broad­casts. Roll call is at 6.45am, and lights out at 9pm. Inmates bathe three times a week, with 15 at a time sharing a large communal bath.

Japanese prison regulations are based on the 1908 penal code, which has retained its draconian foundations despite several revisions. In a damning report on the experience of female prisoners last year, Human Rights Watch said: “Japan’s prisons impose harsh conditions of confinement. Imprisoned people are subject to strict regulations enforced by prison guards with the threat of solitary confinement for disciplinary infractions.

“Regulations in Japan’s prisons are often rigidly enforced in ways that risk worsening social isolation and creating psychological harm for imprisoned people. For instance, imprisoned people are often restricted from interacting with other imprisoned people without permission, including looking in their direction or even making eye contact.”

But officials point to the absence of the overcrowding , drug abuse and violence that blight prisons in com­parable countries – a relative calm they insist is possible only if rules are followed to the letter.

Maintaining order is a trade-off between security and individual freedom, according to Fuchū’s director, Yuiichiro Kushibiki. “This place works because everyone is treated the same,” he says. “There is no hierarchy among criminals here. Look around … there are about 60 men in this workshop, and only a couple of guards. That can only happen if inmates follow the rules and, in turn, build respect with the staff.”

In an area of a workshop, an ageing inmate attempts to throw beanbags on to a tabletop, while another slowly turns the pedals of an exercise bike. “We had to find a different way to treat frail and elderly inmates,” says Masanori Hayashi, the prison’s occupational therapist. “A lot of them can’t handle ordinary work or normal prison life”.”

For some members of Fuchū’s ageing population, life after release will not necessarily herald a new start. According to Yashiro, about 40% “do not have proper living arrangements” on the outside and will need welfare assistance.

The tour ends with a view of the visiting area, where inmates meet family and legal representatives a minimum of twice a month – and up to five times if they earn privileges for good behaviour – in cubicles divided by screens.

Some older prisoners, though, will never set foot here. “They have no family left or who want to see them,” says Yashiro. “It’s much harder for older inmates to adjust after they are released. There are men here who find life easier on the inside.”