Minoru Matsutani's March 5 article, "Analysts call arrest over exam cheating overkill," is spot on. No one condones cheating, but the overkill by the police to persecute a young man who made a mistake is absurd.
Arguably the public discussion should be about why the testing authorities are so ignorant of electronic communications that they did not foresee such an obvious possibility for cheating, as well as why the adults (working full-time jobs?) who provided answers had so much free time during the work day that they were able to peruse the Web and compose answers for the student.
The real story is about the inability of Japanese society to keep up with the modern world, and the lack of productivity among the workforce. The student made a mistake. He should be punished, then given a chance to make amends and do better.
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