If someone finds a lost item in Japan, there is a good chance it will be returned to the owner. The law requires finders of lost items to receive 5-20% of the value if claimed, or to keep the item if unclaimed after 6 months and 14 days. Studies show wallets left on the street in Japan are more likely to be returned with cash intact compared to other countries like the US. This is partly due to cultural norms of honesty in Japan as well as laws requiring lost items be given to police.

1. HONESTY
by: Robea Portia S. Ramos, RN

2. 素直な (su na o na) is Japanese for 'honest'
meaning 'frank, outright' (in adjective form). 誠実な
(sei ji tsu na) is Japanese for 'honest' meaning
'sincere, truthful'. 素顔な (su ga o na) also can be
used for 'honest' meaning literally 'with an
unmasked face, wholehearted, frank'.
In Japan there is law — Article 28, paragraph I of
the lost property law — that says the finder of a
lost object should receive between 5 percent and
20 percent of the value of the object. At lost an
found's if no one claims the object after 6 months
and 14 days its finders keepers.

3. ● If you loose something in Japan there is good
chance you'll get it back. If someone finds your
wallet or purse there is a good chance they will
check out your address on your driver's license and
personally deliver it to you with all the cash and
credit cards inside.
● If you lose your subway or train ticket, train station
attendants will generally take your word and let you
out of the station without any problem. In some
cases, if you are short of cash and need to buy a
train ticket to get home, you can borrow money
from a policeman or a train station attendant. Most
Japanese who do this dutifully pay back the money
the next day.

4. ● If someone finds your wallet or purse there is
a good chance they will check out your
address on your driver's license and
personally deliver it to you with all the cash
and credit cards inside.
● One time my wife lost her wallet and the
person who found it tracked her down using
our her video rental card. Keys and jackets
that are found in parks and along sidewalks
are hung from a fence or bush so the person
who lost them can find them the next time
they pass the same way.

5. ● In 2003 a University of Michigan Law School
professor conducted what he called a comparative
study on recovering lost property in the United
States and Japan. The professor, Mark West, left
20 wallets on the street in Tokyo and 20 in New
York, each containing the equivalent of $20. In New
York, he said, six wallets were returned with the
cash intact and two were brought back empty. In
Tokyo, finders returned 17 of 20 wallets, all with the
cash intact, and all but one waived the right to claim
the money if the owner wasn't found.” "There's no
evidence Japanese people have extreme norms of
honesty," West recently wrote in an email about his
2003 study. "It's partly cultural training, but mostly
the law urges people to hand in lost property to the
police."

6. ● Failure to return a found wallet can result in hours of
interrogation at best, and up to 10 years in prison at
worst.
● Police presence. Japan has an active and visible police
force of nearly 300,000 officers across the country.
Cops walk their beats and chat up local residents and
shopkeepers. Police are posted at ubiquitous kobans,
police boxes manned by one or two officers, and in
cities there's almost always a koban within walking
distance of another koban.
● Organized crime. Police aren't the only ones on patrol
since the earthquake hit. Members of the Yakuza,
Japan's organized crime syndicate, have also been
enforcing order. All three major crime groups—the
Yamaguchi-gumi, the Sumiyoshi-kai, and the Inagawa-
kai—have "compiled squads to patrol the streets of their
turf and keep an eye out to make sure looting and
robbery doesn't occur,"

7. References:
http://www.slate.
com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2011/03/
stop_thief_thank_you.html
http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?
itemid=642&catid=18#15
http://www.dannychoo.
com/post/en/26391/Why+do+you+like+Japan.
html