A part of the penal system of Japan, it is operated by the Ministry of Justice.

At the time, the man's prison cell had been left open despite the winter, and he was determined to have died from freezing.

His bereaved family filed a lawsuit seeking damages at the Kobe District Court.

The court ordered the government to pay about 43.6 million yen, saying that prison officials neglected monitoring while noticing a change in his physical condition.

[1] On June 14, 2012, 53 people in the same detention center complained of food poisoning symptoms such as diarrhea and abdominal pain, and Clostridium perfringens was detected in some of these patients.