2 Outline of survey

The questionnaires used in this survey consisted of a total of 27 questions that were based on items used in surveys conducted by the Research and Training Institute of the Ministry of Justice in 1990, 1998, and 2005, but with new questions on the cause of delinquencies/offenses and their attitudes toward dispositions and reformation/rehabilitation, etc. The survey was conducted after having confirmed the subjects’ intention to participate in it and asked them to write the answer by themselves but without their names on the sheets. Basic data on the survey subjects regarding the type of their delinquencies/offenses and their histories of protective measures, etc. were also confirmed by officials at the institutions where the survey subjects were being accommodated.

The results of the survey concerning this featured article are summarized in Sections 2 and 3 of this chapter. In order to compare the results on delinquents and young offenders by their delinquent tendencies while juveniles a comparison by their history of protective measures (classified into three categories: commitment to a juvenile training school, probation, or no protective measure (those who had both histories of probation and commitment to a juvenile training school were included in the category of the latter)) was made in the aforementioned sections. Those with a history of a commitment to a children’s self-reliance support facility, etc. only were few in number, and hence they were excluded from the figures/tables and the analysis “by history of protective measures.” With regard to those with a history of commitment to a children’s self-reliance support facility, etc., in order to identify the consequences of their problematic behavior, including delinquencies, etc., from a relatively early stage, those with the said history, both with and without other histories of protective measures, (24 juvenile delinquents and 24 young offenders) were separately analyzed.