Kyogoin Home in Japan: Light and Shade of Tradition (From Comparative Criminal Justice: Traditional and Nontraditional Systems of Law and Control, P 573-582, 1996, Charles B Fields and Richter H Moore, Jr, eds. -- See NCJ-161138)

• NCJ Number: 161169
• Author(s): A Hattori
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 10 pages
• Sale Source: Waveland Press, Inc.
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper describes the Kyogoin Home in Japan, which is characterized by the author as a "family-substituted treatment facility," and assesses some of the changes that are occurring in such homes.

Abstract

Kyogoin Home means, if translated literally, "the facility to educate and protect the children" who are adjudicated as delinquent or predelinquent. Traditionally, the most distinctive feature of the Kyogoin Home compared to other facilities is that the married couple that staffs a home lives with the client children in a cottage for months as substitutes for the children's biological parents. The problem behaviors of the client children are usually attributed to the disruption, dysfunction, or poor conditions of their family. The Kyogoin Home gives these children a family that is indispensable for their development, as well as helping them become independent through the married-couple staff that lives with them. Several Kyogoin Homes have given up the parent-cottage system, however, and moved to the shift system. Almost half of the Kyogoin Homes are administered under the shift or combined system. The main reason for this change is the restriction on staff working hours in Kyogoin Homes within the parent-cottage system. The conditions were believed by officials to violate Labor Standards Law. This change is not based on what is believed best for the children, and it may undermine the positive features that Kyogoin Homes have traditionally provided.