http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060126TDY02004.htm
"The government has decided to offer cash incentives to companies that hire people released from prison on parole and young people are released from juvenile reformatories on probation in a bid to reduce the number of reoffenders.
Parolees with a job are much less likely to reoffend. According to 2003 figures released by the Justice Ministry, of the 38,041 people paroled or on probation and employed, only 2,900, or 7.6 percent, reoffended. However, of the 11,858 people on parole or probation who could not find a job, 4,707, or 39.7 percent--a rate five times higher--committed another crime. Although the ministry has designated about 5,700 firms, mainly construction companies, as 'cooperative employers' and has been calling on them to hire those on probation, the companies had not previously been offered financial assistance by the government.
As of April last year, only about 6,000 people were hired by cooperative employers. The government's new cash incentives are an attempt to raise the number of parolees or probationers being hired. " [Snippet]
