Japan brightens prison clothes, bedding

April 13, 2005

TOKYO -- Martha Stewart, eat your heart out. Japan is giving its prisoners more brightly colored clothing and bed sheets in the hopes of cheering up the mood behind bars.

The decision, to be implemented next year, was made after consultation with professional color coordinators and will be the first change in prisoners' uniforms since 1966.

"We hope to stabilize the mental states of inmates by giving them warmer and brighter colors," Shigemi Tanimoto, a Justice Ministry official, said in making the announcement Wednesday. "Color experts told us the colors currently in use were too cold and aggressive."

In a survey conducted two years ago, many inmates asked for a change in the color and material of their government-issued clothing, he said.

Japan now provides the country's 71,889 inmates with dark brown and gray clothes and bedcovers in sharply contrasting orange and green. Tanimoto refused to say what specific colors will be used for the new uniforms.

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