Jean-Marc Desperrier wrote:
> CL wrote:
>> [...] the central business hub of the thriving metropolis of Abashiri 
>> [...]
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abashiri%2C_Hokkaid%C5%8D
> "Abashiri is best known as the site of the Abashiri Prison, a Meiji-era 
> facility used for the incarceration of political prisoners."

... and yakuza found guilty of killing rival gang members.  It takes a 
lot to be given the death penalty for gang killings.  You have to kill 
innocent bystanders, too, usually.  About 8~10 years used to be the 
normal confinement period and the first part was always a stretch in 
Abashiri.  Doing time there was a good way to get promoted when you got 
back out ... or, so I have been told by an old oyabun who did eight 
years there in the 1950s for killing someone with a sword.

> For some reason, the french wikipedia has more details, describing 
> living conditions for the prisoneers that looked more like siberian 
> gulag than anything else.

I've been told that the cells were never heated unless the prisoner got 
TB or pneumonia and then only a clay hibachi with one of the round 
charcoal bricks in it per day.  Carbon monoxide poisoning wasn't a 
problem because the windows didn't have any glass, only steel shutters 
that didn't fit tightly.  According to my source, only the guard rooms 
and commandant's quarters had heaters.

Does the French version mention anything like that?  The English version 
is oddly silent ...

CL