The Justice Ministry will seek Diet approval for the ratification of an international convention on prisoner transfers during an ordinary session to open early next year, it was learned Wednesday.
The move is designed to enable non-Japanese who have been convicted of a crime to serve their sentence in their home country, thus facilitating their return to society, ministry officials said.
According to government statistics, the number of non-Japanese convicted of crimes here has more than doubled in the past 10 years. The rationale behind the convention is the difficulty in creating an environment for foreigners to be rehabilitated due to differences in areas such as language and customs.