Justice Ministry launches permanent unit for emergency response

May 14, 2019

Tokyo--Japan's Justice Ministry has launched a special security squad for responding to riots and other emergencies at prisons and juvenile detention centers, Justice Minister Takashi Yamashita said at a press conference Tuesday.

The 56-member squad, organized under the ministry's Correction Bureau, is stationed at the Tokyo detention house in Katsushika Ward.

There were calls for the bureau, which is responsible for mattes concerning the treatment of inmates, to assemble a security squad after an April 2018 incident in which a prisoner escaped from Matsuyama prison in

Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, western Japan.

In the incident, the ministry asked for the dispatch of support personnel from prisons in nearby areas. However, delays in deployments allowed the prisoner to evade capture for more than 20 days.

The special team is also in charge of running evacuation centers within correctional facilities in times of disasters and supporting evacuees.

Cases of prisons being used as evacuation centers have been on the rise in recent years. For example, a prison in Kumamoto Prefecture opened up part of its facilities to local residents after a series of strong earthquakes struck the southwestern Japan prefecture in April 2016.

"Correctional facilities are asked to use their security capabilities to help local residents in times of disasters," Yamashita said. Jiji Press