Police detention facilities, known as “substitute prisons” (daiyo kangoku) are used to hold detainees for up to 23 days prior to indictment. Suspects held in daiyo kangoku have been forced to make confessions, and some have subsequently been sentenced to death. Concerns related to the “substitute prison” system include insufficient access to lawyers, insufficient access to a medical doctor, ineffective procedures to limit the length of interrogation sessions, inadequate records of interrogation and allegations of ill-treatment of detainees.
