With its glass frontage and portico, Fuchū prison could be mistaken for a municipal government office. Inside, visitors enter an airy reception area where a banner declares support for the local football team, FC Tokyo.
But stepping through a heavy, guarded door reveals that this is unmistakably a place of incarceration. Its walls house 1,700 inmates, including a large number serving sentences of less than 10 years but who, in the words of the prison literature, have “advanced criminal tendencies”.
