With its glass facade and portico, Fuchū Prison could be mistaken for a local government office. Inside, visitors enter an airy reception area where a banner expresses support for the local soccer team, FC Tokyo.
But step through a heavy, guarded door and you'll see that this is unmistakably a prison. Within its walls are 1,700 inmates, many 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 bed linen, stacks of books, and spotless mint-green walls. The silence is broken by the sound of a guard greeting the prison director, Hiroyuki Yashiro, as he escorts a small number of media organizations, including the Observer who have been given a rare opportunity to be on the front lines of Japan's criminal justice system.
About a third of the men incarcerated in Fuchū, Japan's largest prison, have ties to the yakuza - The Japanese criminal syndicates. They are easy to spot, with extensive, sprawling tattoos only partially covered by the prescribed white vests.
But it's hard to imagine many of them chasing their enemies through the streets of Tokyo, beating up business owners for protection money or taking on members of a rival gang. Like many of the prisoners here, they're long past the twilight of their criminal careers.
The number of foreign prisoners in Fuchū, on the western outskirts of Tokyo, has risen slightly as the overall prison population falls. But Yashiro said the biggest challenge is the large and growing population of elderly men. This criminal group reflects broader demographic trends in Japan, where nearly a third of the 125 million people are 65 or older.
In Fuchū, 22% of prisoners fall into this age group. They have needs that can give the prison a nursing home feel, from the specially equipped wet rooms to the nursing qualifications that younger prisoners acquire to care for their older counterparts and which they may be able to use to find employment after release.
"Some older men have difficulty walking or washing themselves without help and need to take medication, so we bring in younger men to help them," Yashiro said, adding that more than 70 percent 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 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 laundries. In another, however, older men are given no more demanding task than assembling plastic clothes pegs to improve their strength and dexterity.
Among the most high-profile detainees at Fuchū are Kenichi Shinoda, the octogenarian leader of Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan's most powerful criminal network, and Michael Taylor, the former US Green Beret who helped Carlos Ghosn flee Japan in 2019.
Taylor, who served just over a year of his sentence in Fuchū before being transferred to a U.S. prison, has spoken out since his release about the harsh conditions: extreme temperatures, a lack of water and a long list of rules and regulations - applied to all prisoners, regardless of age - including no talking to fellow inmates during work or meals, being required to sit in a certain way for long periods of time in their cells, limited visitation rights and only 30 minutes of exercise a day.
Television viewing is controlled and rationed, although Fuchū's 370 foreign prisoners have access to English-language and Chinese-language radio broadcasts. Roll call is at 6:45 a.m. and lights out at 9 p.m. Prisoners bathe three times a week, 15 at a time in a large communal pool.
Japanese prison rules are based on the 1908 Penal Code, which despite several revisions has retained its draconian foundations. In a damning report on the experiences of female prisoners last year, Human Rights Watch said: "Japanese prisons impose harsh confinement conditions. Prisoners are subject to strict rules enforced by prison guards with the threat of solitary confinement for disciplinary infractions.
"Rules in Japanese prisons are often rigidly enforced in ways that risk exacerbating social isolation and causing psychological harm to prisoners. For example, prisoners are often restricted from interacting with other prisoners 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 plague prisons in comparable countries - a relative calm they say is possible only if the rules are followed to the letter.
According to Fuchū's director, Yuiichiro Kushibiki, maintaining order is a trade-off between safety and individual freedom. "This place works because everyone is treated the same," he says. "There is no hierarchy among criminals here. Look around you ... there are about 60 men in this workshop and only a few guards. That can only happen if prisoners play by the rules and in turn build respect among the staff."
In one section of a workshop, an elderly inmate tries to toss bean bags onto a tabletop while another slowly turns the pedals of an exercise bike. "We had to find another way to treat weak and elderly prisoners," says Masanori Hayashi, the prison's occupational therapist. "Many of them can't handle regular work or prison life."
For some members of Fuchū's aging population, life after release won't necessarily be a new beginning. According to Yashiro, about 40 percent "have no proper housing" on the outside and will need assistance.
The tour ends with a look at the visiting area, where inmates meet with their families and legal representatives in cubicles separated by screens at least twice a month-and up to five times if they earn privileges for good behavior.
Some older prisoners, however, will never set foot here. "They don't have any family or anyone to see them," Yashiro says. "It's much harder for older prisoners to adjust after they're released. There are men here who find life inside easier."
