Prisons full and struggling to cope with foreigners' needs.


Fuchu Prison, the nation's largest, is a 260,000 square meter facility that includes a three-story residential building used only to house foreign inmates.

In the evening, inmates finish working at the prison's factories and return to the building. Each cell has a sign on its door indicating the type and size of meal the inmate should be served. A "special meal" sign indicates that an inmate requires special consideration concerning meals because, for example, he is a vegetarian. A sign reading '190,' for example, indicates the height of a tall inmate, to ensure extra food is served to him.

At 5 o'clock, dinner is served at each cell. Bread instead of rice is served to most of the foreign inmates. A typical day might see the inmates served grilled salmon in sweet sake with boiled bamboo shoots. Deep-fried vegetables would be served instead of salmon for vegetarians. Beef or chicken dishes are served to Muslims when pork is served to other inmates.

About 3,200 inmates, 360 more than the capacity, are held at Fuchu Prison. Among them, about 550 are foreigners. The number is 1.3 times more than were incarcerated 10 years ago.

Full article - Yomiuri online (http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20070124TDY03004.htm)