Inokuchi Go, Ishihara Kenji, Hayakawa Mutsumi, Yajima Daisuke, Makino Yohsuke, Motomura Ayumi, Chiba Fumiko, Torimitsu Suguru, Iwase Hirotaro
Department of Legal Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8670, Japan.
Department of Legal Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8670, Japan.
Leg Med (Tokyo). 2014 Sep;16(5):258-63. doi: 10.1016/j.legalmed.2014.06.001. Epub 2014 Jun 20.
The death investigation system in Japan is in the midst of a great transformation. As part of efforts to revise this system, in this study we analyzed the reasons the police refer unnatural death cases for forensic autopsy and, from an understanding of the trends of such referrals, we discuss the future direction of handling unnatural deaths in our country. For 1618 forensic autopsy cases handled by the First Investigation Division of Chiba Prefectural Police that were referred to our institution for forensic autopsy between 2003 and 2012, we tallied the number of autopsies by sex, age group, and reason for forensic autopsy for each year and investigated trends in the referrals over time. The results revealed that the number of autopsies increased annually from 2003 to 2012, with a marked increase from 2010. The number of autopsies increased particularly for cases of suspected criminal deaths, where it was unclear to the police before the forensic autopsy whether or not the death resulted from a criminal act. Our findings suggest that the number of forensic autopsies will continue to increase into the future in Chiba prefecture, and is a trend that is inevitable if we are to prevent criminal death cases from being overlooked. Although referrals for forensic autopsy in Japan are made only when criminal activity is suspected, the original purpose of death investigations is not only to avoid overlooking crimes, but also to flag public health issues. Therefore, together with the police, we need to review the original purpose and conduct more in-depth discussions about when referrals are necessary.
日本的死因调查系统正处于重大变革之中。作为修订该系统工作的一部分，在本研究中，我们分析了警方将非自然死亡案件提交法医解剖的原因，并基于对这类提交案件趋势的了解，探讨我国处理非自然死亡案件的未来方向。对于千叶县警第一调查部在2003年至2012年间提交至我们机构进行法医解剖的1618例法医解剖案件，我们统计了每年按性别、年龄组以及法医解剖原因划分的解剖数量，并调查了随时间推移提交案件的趋势。结果显示，2003年至2012年解剖数量逐年增加，2010年起显著上升。解剖数量增加尤其体现在疑似刑事死亡案件中，即在法医解剖前警方不清楚死亡是否由犯罪行为导致的案件。我们的研究结果表明，千叶县未来法医解剖数量将持续增加，并且如果要防止刑事死亡案件被忽视，这是一种不可避免的趋势。尽管在日本仅在怀疑有犯罪活动时才提交法医解剖，但死因调查的初衷不仅是避免忽视犯罪，还包括标记公共卫生问题。因此，我们需要与警方一起审视其初衷，并就何时有必要提交进行更深入的讨论。
