A family court in Saitama has decided to send a 15-year-old girl who stabbed a 53-year-old woman and her 19-year-old daughter in a random attack near Shibuya Station in Tokyo in August, to a juvenile reformatory.
The incident occurred at around 7:20 p.m. on Aug 20. The girl, a junior high school student from Toda, Saitama Prefecture, told police she stabbed the two victims as a practice run to see if she was capable of killing a person because she wanted to kill her mother and then get the death penalty, Kyodo News reported. She used a kitchen knife in the attacks and also had three small knives with her at the time.
The victims were both stabbed in the back. The 19-year-old girl had a knife wound about 10 centimeters deep.
In September, prosecutors in Tokyo sent the girl to the Saitama family court, which handed down its ruling on Wednesday.
© Japan Today
30 Comments
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TokyoLiving
The law in all countries should judge those "teenagers" as adults..
Rodney
What is a juvenile reformatory?
mb96768
A "practice run"? Why involve innocent 3 parties?
elephant200
Her mother has to apologise to the victims, 5 minutes bowing at least!
garypen
In the US, they were called "Reform Schools", at one time. Also, "Juvenile Hall" in some parts of the US. And, colloquially as "Juvie". They are basically minimum security prisons for juveniles.
In the US, because many of them are privatized, judges were being bribed to incarcerate kids that would otherwise have received lesser non-incarceration punishments, as the prison comopanies are paid per prisoner. This would lead to many otherwise normal kids becoming criminals from exposure to more serious underage criminals.
I hope that doesn't happen here.
garypen
Two parties. From the article:
"...she stabbed the two victims as a practice run..."
Joe Blow
10cm deep, holy fark how did she live?!
japancat
A cry for help. Definitely mentally ill.......but yes she needs to be locked up !
CaptDingleheimer
I’m not sure what a juvenile reformatory is, but that poor kid needs a lot of psychiatric help.
wallace
Detention center for teenagers. Not like a prison.
garypen
Detention center = prison.
Granted, a juvenile detention is like a minimum security prison. But, it is still a prison. (That's the "detention" part.)
wallace
More like an open prison.
Abe234
TokyoLivingToday 07:34 am JST
oh it’s so simple isn’t it? So when you get an 18 year old with the mental development of a 13 year old or a 8 year old. Treat them like an adult for a crime.
The other question is, why did she do this? Is she mentally ill? If so she needs treatment? The age is a number that is just for a police officer, or a court, to charge someone, it makes it so simple, without looking at the circumstances. Many people have made terrible terrible mistakes in their lives, as teenagers. Many go on to be good people.
Abe234
This has always confused me about the USA, why would any prison ever want to release someone for good behavior, and loose money, an empty cell is a profit loosing cell, and shareholders , like any good business, needs more product, in this case prisoners. To actually incentivize people incarceration really is pretty sick, especially if there are racial undertones, or economically poor people. So even a prison is lowered to a price.
garypen
You are correct. It is pretty sick. Prisons should not be profit centers. Wanna hear something even sicker? In some instances, prison labor is sold to private companies for jobs like phone support. Not only is it tantamount to slavery, unsuspecting customers are giving their credit card and other personal info to convicted felons, over the phone.
nandakandamanda
No one has asked what the mother could have done to her to make her consider murdering her for it.
nakanoguy01
The unsuspecting boyfriend in her future better watch his "back!"
purple_depressed_bacon
I hope the juvenile reformatory they sent her to has a good psych department because the kid clearly needs psychiatric intervention to help her rehabilitation to go smoothly.
Sanjinosebleed
Death sentence and save the future person she will no doubt kill!
smithinjapan
She'll be out stabbing again in no time. Another no-consequences judgement by Japan.
Chico3
I hope she gets the help she needs while realizing her deeds after her treatments and apologizes accordingly.
WilliB
She will be out to kill again.
Joe Blow
15 is no child.
Sven Asai
She needs intense treatment, of course. I guess, a 10cm and of course also not really life threatening knife wound will do best. That gives her immediate and only possible help as an unforgettable impression of what she’s done wrong. Everything else won’t bring any long term good.
Alex
I'm sorry, but what the mother possibly "could have done" means very little in a case where the perpetrator decided to practice murdering on innocent people first. The fact that this girl thought nothing of the lives of those she attacked, saw them only as practice dummies for her main goal, says far more about the girl herself than anything her parents "could have done" to her.