Japan's largest women's prison faces closure as country shifts away from mandatory work

Women in pale pink smocks and green head coverings bend over fabric at sewing machines inside Tochigi Women's Prison. Talking is forbidden. The guards watch silently under cold neon lights as the prisoners ignore both security staff and visiting journalists.

About 450 inmates are held at this aging facility, located roughly 70 miles north of Tokyo between rice fields and warehouses. The prison will close in 2028 due to deteriorating buildings and low prisoner numbers. Staff and inmates will move to one of nine other prisons across the country.

Prisoners work Monday through Friday from 7:40 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with a 30-minute lunch break and shorter pauses in the morning and afternoon. Pay is minimal. Some earn the equivalent of around €25 ($29) per month. The seamstresses produce goods for private clients. Other women fold origami, cook in the kitchen, work in the laundry, or repair wheelchairs for fellow inmates.

Japan's prison system has emphasized work since the late 19th century, when it adopted Prussian models. Officials believed labor would teach punctuality, obedience, perseverance, and teamwork. Previously, most sentences included a legal obligation to work, while others could choose to apply for jobs. That two-tier system ended in June 2025.

The new law creates a single form of imprisonment focused on individualized care, rehabilitation, and reintegration. This marks the first major change to Japan's sentencing system in over 100 years. Work may now be paired with vocational training, addiction support, counseling, and preparation for release. Makoto Tadaki, a criminal law professor at Chuo University in Tokyo, said the reform allows prisons to combine work and guidance more flexibly and create space for other treatments.

The government made this change because nearly 50% of released prisoners reoffend. However, warden Kiyochika Miyoshi says work has not lost its importance at Tochigi. The prison offers training in hairdressing, caregiving, and forklift operation. About 80% of inmates are released early, though the 36 convicted of murder are not among them.

Not everyone accepts the warden's account of conditions. In late August 2025, a 63-year-old woman serving a life sentence for robbery and murder sued Tochigi, claiming officials ignored her health complaints and punished her repeatedly for refusing work. She said staff used pepper spray against her and placed her in disciplinary confinement, restricting her to her cell.

Human Rights Watch published a 2023 report citing a formerly imprisoned woman with an intellectual disability who said prison officials "don't treat us like human beings at all." The organization criticized strict limits on outside communication and found that some inmates were denied gender-specific healthcare, including basic items like sanitary products. The report also noted that mothers who give birth have their infants taken away almost immediately and given to relatives or alternative care institutions.

Warden Kiyochika rejects accusations of harshness. He points to newly built "reflecting rooms" as evidence of reform. These two small spaces have padded chairs, a toy to squeeze, carpeted floors, plastic plants, and wall pictures. Inmates can spend up to 30 minutes there talking about their thoughts, problems, and future while two officers listen.

The reflecting rooms contrast sharply with regular cells, which measure just under 6 square meters (64 square feet). Single cells contain a narrow bed for foreign prisoners or traditional tatami mats for Japanese inmates, a chair at a tiny table, a small cheap television on a metal cabinet, and a small locker. Well-behaved prisoners may move to shared cells with up to six women, where doors stay open and toilets are separate.

More than 60% of Tochigi's inmates have physical or mental health problems or are ill. Just under 40% are in good health. Almost one in five women is over 70 years old, and the oldest is 91. Some use wheelchairs and need help accessing the communal bath. Yet the prison employs only four nurses and two physiotherapists.

About one-third of inmates come from other countries, mostly Thailand, Vietnam, and China. Many were convicted of drug smuggling, as Japan enforces some of the world's strictest drug laws. Few foreign prisoners receive Japanese language lessons. Warden Kiyochika questioned whether lessons make sense if inmates will return home after release.

In Japan, people serving life sentences are almost never released, giving them little realistic chance at rehabilitation. The 36 women at Tochigi convicted of murder face such sentences, meaning their only path forward depends on exceptional legal circumstances that rarely occur.