etakajp@gmail.com wrote:

> That's dry. Don't Japanese felons lose the right to possess passports,
> like Americans?

No, they don't.  You can never be licensed to own a katana or a hunting
rifle, but you don't lose your passport.

They even have a system in Japan that if a convicted felon doesn't
repeat for ten years, the Japanese police tell foreign embassies that
they have no police record at all.  I worked on one case in which a very
highly ranked yakuza served ten years for murder (he beheaded his
opponent with a short sword and got a reduced sentence because his
opponent had a sword, too), was released and went into book, television,
and movie script writing, making a ton of "legitimate" money.  Since the
other crimes he committed in the next ten years were not worse than
murder (they were mostly arrests for illegal possession of swords and
handguns and waving them around when he got drunk), the police told the
US Embassy that he had a clean record.  Unfortunately, the FBI knew
better and he was arrested for lying on a visa application when he tried
to visit the condo he'd purchased in Honolulu.

And, when released felons who were found guilty of "lesser" felonies,
like fraud or theft, apply for visas and say they have no criminal
record on their application there is a very good chance that the
Japanese police will verify that.  Some of it depends on who they are
and some of it is luck.

-- 
CL