- There was a detention facility called a “Kanbo” in every sanatorium. It was there to discipline and confine those who tried to escape or rebel against the staff orders.
- The patients were deprived of their legal rights while living in the sanatorium. So much so that they were not able to even claim their innocence or take their cases to court for trial when and if they were prosecuted.
- These detention facilities were established as a way to maintain order in the sanatorium.
- One of the worst detention facilities was built in a sanatorium in Gunma Prefecture where there was heavy snowfall and temperatures fell as far as minus 10 degrees centigrade in the winter. There was neither heating nor warm bedding (warm “futon”) and where they were imprisoned for days and it is said that 23 people died there.
- These detention facilities remained in some sanatoria even after the promulgation of the Japanese Constitution after World War II, which guaranteed basic human rights for all. There were also medical prisons built solely to confine patients outside of the sanatoria.
