86 percent of all crimes in Japan end with a full confession by the accused

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http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/resources/transcripts/0031.html

<snip>But there's another reason that torture also appears in a democracy. It has to do with characteristics of the judicial system. We know, for example, that torture is highly correlated with long-term detention powers given to the police. The longer the police can have you in their custody without having to show you to a judge, the more likely it is that torture is going to appear in the system. So if you have a police, like the Japanese police, that can arrest you on a charge for 24 days and then release you and then arrest you again for that charge for another 24 days and another 24 days and another 24 days, until you actually finally come to terms with the fact that you are going to have to confess, that will bring torture into the system.

Another thing that can certainly trigger the process is a judicial system in which juries and judges value confessions a great deal. Again, the Japanese system is a particularly interesting one in this respect. Across all crimes, in Japan, 86 percent of all crimes in Japan end with a full confession by the accused. That's huge. In our country and in England and France, it's between 30 and 40 percent. That's a cultural disposition. There are a lot of reasons why the Japanese value confessions. But one of the things that happens is, when you combine confession with long-term detention, torture happens. The Japanese Bar Association has found a number of cases, starting from the 1970s, where this sort of thing happens.