With the backing and authority of the Kamakura bakufu, jito could (and many did) treat shoen very harshly; given their total contractual power over shoen to collect the predetermined amount for the annual tax regardless of whether it had been a good or a poor harvest, and their power forcibly to divide the land in a shoen into the jito's private section and the (absentee) owner's section, many jito were oppressive and little more than tyrants, in a sense.
鎌倉幕府の権威を背景に荘園を侵略し、豊作凶作にかかわり無く一定額の年貢で荘園管理を一切請け負わせる地頭請や、荘園を地頭分と領家分に強引にわける下地中分など、一部で横暴も多くあった。