By Carol Lawson. Published in Issue 20 of Paper Chained in December 2025.
Japan closed its doors to other countries around 1600, though in the 1860s, it opened up again and needed to modernise quickly to avoid looking primitive and being colonised by western countries. Building a criminal justice system like those in Europe and America was one way to earn international respect and show that Japan could govern itself. But there wasn’t enough money. Everything had to be built, and all staff had to be hired and trained. Ordinary citizens played a major role from the beginning, filling in gaps. This included volunteering to deliver community corrections services that the government could not afford.
Volunteering started in Shizuoka Prefecture; one of the prefectures that Mt. Fuji straddles, in 1889. A local leader noticed that former prisoners struggled to find a place to live and a job. He formed an organisation to help prisoners settle back into society and called for volunteers to help. Hundreds volunteered. Over the next 50 years, this charitable initiative expanded to other prefectures.
Government initiatives started later. Japan had no Rehabilitation Bureau until 1920 and it initially handled only juvenile probation. There was a strong belief, which continues today, that juvenile offenders should be protected, not criminalised. So, the Family Court handles cases of juvenile crime or delinquency – not the criminal courts. Probation orders, which focus on keeping juvenile offenders at home with their families, are a core part of Japan’s juvenile justice system. From the very beginning, juvenile probation involved only a few government officials, whose role was to supervise a large number of unpaid volunteers. By the late 1930s, this system of public-private cooperation had spread to probation for adult offenders. The VPO system took shape in 1950. Even today, almost all day-to-day probation services are delivered by local volunteers.
In Japan, the word “probation” covers both probation and parole. There are around 46,000 Volunteer Probation Officers (VPOs). Many are older men – their average age is 65, though the percentage of women VPOs is slowly rising.
The criteria for becoming a VPO are simple. They must be of trustworthy character, be enthusiastic about the role and have enough free time, a stable life, and be healthy and active. Often a VPO is a retiree or local business owner who is a respected and well-known member of their local community. The idea that a VPO can be a person who is an ex-offender is new in Japan, but there now are a handful of cases – mostly people who offended as teenagers.
Rather than actively seeking the role, people who become VPOs are often “volunteered” by someone they know. When a serving VPO retires, which they must do before turning 78, they recommend someone they know from their local community to replace them.
VPOs are not paid, but they do receive a small monthly allowance of about 50 Australian dollars to cover costs such as phone calls and public transport.
VPOs are supervised by professional Probation Officers, who work for the Rehabilitation Bureau and are located across Japan. A professional Probation Officer can be responsible for dozens of VPOs at any time, while each VPO will have just one or two probationers to look after at a time.
The expression in Japanese that is translated as “probation” (hogo kansatsu) literally means to “protect and supervise”. The order of these words is important, because a lot of what VPOs do is protective, in a very flexible, practical sense. VPOs have three main duties – to undertake basic training sessions provided by professional Probation Officers; to help with outreach and educational activities aimed at preventing crime in the local community; and to work closely with the one or two probationers, people on probation, assigned to them. They do also “supervise” their probationers in the sense that they monitor whether they breach any conditions set by the courts or parole. If there is a breach, the VPO lets the professional Probation Officer know immediately. VPOs also submit a written report to the Probation Officer on each probationer in their care every month. The Probation Officer is the one who evaluates how the probationer’s risk of offending is tracking and decides things like what therapeutic programs the probationer is to attend and whether to recommend revocation of probation. If things are not going well, the Probation Officer meets with the VPO and the probationer more often to try and resolve things before probation has to be revoked.
The VPO spends a lot of time networking and negotiating on the probationer’s behalf in the local community. They work hard to increase the chances of successful reintegration and make it less likely that they will re-offend. A VPO meets with their assigned probationer/s at least once a month. In rural areas where homes are big enough to guarantee privacy, this often still happens in the VPO’s own home and might include sharing a meal together. In cities, where homes tend to be small, cramped apartments with thin walls, these meetings usually happen in a public facility, called a Rehabilitation Protection Support Centre, where the local VPOs do their work.
A VPO is also responsible for ‘hands on’, real-time, all-hours troubleshooting in all the areas of a probationer’s life that affect whether they will successfully complete their probation period. They prepare for this role by being briefed by a professional Probation Officer on the probationer’s needs, then actively leveraging their own standing in the community to build relationships with people the probationer will need to rely on.
For example, they will meet with family members or others who have offered to be in a guardian role for a probationer being released from prison. They will also check on the probationer’s housing arrangements and chat with the landlord and neighbours, and will meet with the decision makers at the probationer’s job or school. Any people helping the probationer will receive the VPO’s contact details. This means that if any misunderstanding or disagreement happens, the VPO is the first person a decision maker calls. The VPO can step in quickly to mediate and find a solution.
VPOs have no set work hours or limits on the amount of time they spend helping a probationer. How much they do and when they do it is up to them. Many serve in the role for decades, acting as a flexible buffer between probationers and their community as they settle in.
The VPO system needs to be very effective for three reasons. Firstly, Japan is a Confucian society where shame is a strong cultural factor. Families often disown a relative who has offended, particularly if they have re-offended. So there may be no family help available. Secondly, the welfare system is skeletal. It offers very little financial or practical help compared to western countries. While people who have offended are theoretically eligible for benefits, shame, stigma, and practical barriers often prevent them from applying.
Thirdly, even though Japan still uses the death penalty for capital crimes, very few people convicted of other crimes go to prison. A conviction typically leads to penalties like fines and probation. Prison sentences are short on average – about 3 years – and can also be wholly or partially suspended. So, Japan’s incarceration rate is very low, just 33 people per 100,000 of population. The figure is around 150 in both Australia and New Zealand, and over 540 in the US.
The VPO system, which has such a central role in the criminal justice system, seems to be highly effective. The two-year reoffending rate is the percentage of prisoners released two years ago who are now back in prison. We use this figure to compare the success of criminal justice systems globally. In Japan, it has dropped from 19% in 2010 to 13% in 2022. The five-year reoffending rate dropped from 39% in 2010 to 34% in 2019. These figures are far lower than rates in Australia, New Zealand and the US.
So why has this happened? For around fifteen years, there has been a strong emphasis in Japan on making sure that probationers have secure housing and a place where they feel included and belong – like a school, a job or a therapeutic community. It is well known here that the risk that a person will re-offend is many times lower if these two things are set up before the probationer arrives in a community, and if they are then supported until their probation period ends.
The Ministry of Justice has been keen to share the success of the VPO system with other countries for decades now. It tends to suit cultures where community life is strong, and where governments do not have a lot of resources. Each country that has adopted the VPO system creates its own version, to suit its own needs and society. So far, Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Kenya have all done this. China and Malaysia are also interested.
However, stresses are facing the VPO system. Japan’s society is aging faster than any other country in the world. Already around 30% of the population is aged over 65. The share of the population made up of younger and middle-aged people gets smaller every year. As these younger cohorts shrink, it is harder and harder to find new recruits to become VPOs. Wages have stayed pretty much the same in Japan for over 30 years, even when prices have risen. So many more Japanese people are now experiencing financial stress and can’t volunteer. At the same time, many experienced VPOs are retiring after they turn 78.
Offenders are aging too. Juvenile delinquency and crime are gradually disappearing while the share of offenders who have complex long-term needs is growing. VPOs are not professionals, so they can struggle to know how to help older repeat offenders with high needs.
Violence against VPOs is rare, but in mid-2024, a probationer attacked and killed his VPO in the VPO’s home. This tragedy has sparked widespread efforts to reinforce the system to ensure VPO safety – for example by always having two VPOs present during a meeting with a probationer.
Japan’s VPO system began with ordinary people taking the initiative because the government did not have the resources to help people rehabilitate and reintegrate after they had offended. This almost accidental design, where local volunteers deliver most probation services and there are very few professional Probation Officers, has for more than 135 years, been central to the system’s success.
In Australia, New Zealand, and the US, community corrections also began in the 1800s as local volunteers stepped up. But for decades now, professionally trained public servants have delivered most of these services. Volunteers are still involved, but only on the edges.
There are many advantages for probationers due to this change. But Japan’s example shows us that we might have also lost something along the way. When local community volunteers take on a VPO-like role, the reintegration barriers that affect offenders everywhere are much lower. This leaves us wondering whether there might be elements of the VPO system that might fit well in and benefit our own community corrections systems.
Carol Lawson is an Australian academic who is based in Japan. She studies, writes, and speaks about prison and probation in both countries.
