Elderly crime in Japan

On Wednesday, 9th February, I attended the Osaka District court to witness the process of Japanese justice first hand. The cases I saw there were three petty theft cases. In the first, money had been stolen from an ATM machine. The total was around JPY200,000 or about AUD2500. In the second case the amount was more difficult to estimate as the crime involved stealing externally located water faucets from office buildings. The accused claimed to have received around JPY500 for each faucet and I can only assume that he was selling them for scrap.

The third case involved a theft of around JPY15,000 (AUD180). The accused had exhausted his funds at a pachinko gambling house and had decided that he would be able to easily steal money from people that had become drunk and passed out. He had been in the process of taking money from a drunken and apparently unconscious woman when she awoke and began to scream. He was apprehended at the scene.

These sorts of crimes are grist to the mill of any system of justice around the world. They were committed by the unemployed poor of the city and they were committed by men. They were petty crimes for relatively small amounts. The distinguishing feature though was that in all three cases, the crimes had been committed by older men. The first defendant was 60 years old, the second 62 years old and the third 59 years old.

In most of the world, the lower courts are filled with crimes of drugs and violence committed by young men with too much testosterone and too little education. Why then is the situation so different in Japan?

The circumstances of the three men were similar. They were all divorced or widowed and they had no contact with their children or family. They had no employment and little prospect of gaining employment. Their circumstances were at once poignant and baffling. Furthermore it appeared that they were not in the slightest bit unusual. I was told shortly after the hearing that Japan is undergoing a grey crime wave of sorts.

And it turned out that my information is correct. A Washington Times report dated 5 weeks prior to my visit to Osaka District Court describes the difficulties face by prisons in handling the influx of elderly prisoners, six months earlier Bloomberg had reported that “the number of arrests among people aged 65 or older tripled to 48,786 in 2008 from 1999” and in 2008 Reuters had reported that “crime by elderly Japanese has doubled over the past five years” and that while Japan’s population is certainly aging, “the number of such crimes is growing faster than the elderly population itself.”

There are more reports of the phenomenon, all with the same theme; the rate of crime among the elderly is increasing, the crimes are overwhelming petty theft and shoplifting, the causes are poverty and loneliness.

To me these reports seemed a little glib. Circular statements that opine that loneliness and poverty cause crime, the elderly in Japan are more lonely due to the breakdown of the traditional family and they are poorer due to the heavy burden of supporting an aging society. All this means that the elderly are committing more crime.

The academic literature did not offer much at all. There are few very articles examining the phenomenon. Most mentions of the elderly and crime in Japan either focus on the elderly as victims of crime rather than perpetrators, or focus on older men as perpetrators of sexual crimes against younger women.

An interesting paper written in 2004 attempts to explain the low crime rate in Japan. There's not much doubt that crime rates are low in Japan, their murder rate and violent assault rates are the lowest in the OECD. The 2004 paper suggests four causes of low rates of crime; 

1. Strong, informal social control mechanisms, 
2. Economic prosperity, 
3. Certainty of punishment and 
4. The aging population. 

Of these four, it is certainly the case that Japan’s economic success has diminished in recent times, but are there factors here that would affect only the elderly? Can the breakdown of social control mechanisms be partly responsible for the increase of crime among the elderly?

The strong, informal social controls tend to come from the sense of community that still exists quite strongly in Japan. The associated notions of “group” and belonging” also remain quite strong. For these elderly men however, it appears that the group has left them behind. They are at an age where they should expect to be the senior speakers for the group. Heads of their family, respected in their workplace, securely looking forward to (or even already enjoying) their retirement. These are the things that the group expects and by falling outside these expectations, these men have fallen outside the group. Their reaction appears to be a turning to crime, partly for the benefits of the crime itself, but also it would appear that they seek the security that their inevitable incarceration brings. Their incarceration places them back within a group and gives them security and certainty.

In 2006, the Japanese Justice Ministry was reported as being “so alarmed by the rise in geriatric crime that it has started a research project into its causes ... ‘We have no idea what is causing the rise in the elderly crime rate,’ said Yoshihiro Ono, a ministry of justice researcher”. I suspect that while we may have some idea what is causing it, there is still a great deal more work to be done.

This is adapted from a short essay written as part of my master's programme. If you're interested, I can provide references. The "2004 paper" is Roberts, A. and LaFree, G., (2004), “Explaining Japan's Postwar Violent Crime Trends”, Criminology, Vol 42, No 1; pg. 179

I have become a fan of David Cameron

In England, for reasons that I have never thoroughly understood, they get very excited about royal weddings. One of the things they do, just to demonstrate to each other how excited they actually are, is they have street parties. The street parties seem to involve a lot of cake, some really hot tea and your CD compilation of the very best of Cliff Richard.

Now my personal inclinations aside, I figure if that's what they like to do, who am I to stop them? As long as I don't have to listen to the Cliff Richard CD, then go right ahead.

Now as you might have heard (I have to admit that I had not heard until this morning) there is a royal wedding about to happen. Prince William is going to marry Kate Middleton. I had heard the name Kate Middleton bandied around before and simply assumed that she was another in a long line of pop singers. Turns out she's not. She's another in a long line of moderately attractive women that get to marry hereditary heads of state. But I digress.

The nanny state is alive and well in England and various councils have cautioned their constituents about the terrible dangers of having a street party. The dreadful perils involved no longer mean that it's only necessary to let your neighbours know that piping hot tea and a home made sponge cake will be available, it is now a requirement to obtain council permission. You'll need insurance of course and you'll need to provide a detail plan, probably an elfen safety certificate and various other documents.

In other words, you can't do it if you're just folks, you need to have a profit motive sufficiently large to put up with the red tape.

So.

David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK, turns up at a press conference recently with a sheaf of papers. He reads one that tells us that some council has decided that you can have a street party as long as there is no music, no 'rides', no alcohol. Another council has decreed that there can be no "home made cakes" or tea - (apparently for elfen safety) and another council has told some poor nong that he needs £5 million in public liability insurance.

Cameron puts all this to one side and says "This is ridiculous. These pen pushers and busy bodies are completely wrong, they have no right to stop you from having fun and let me put it like this: I'm the prime minister and I'm telling you: If you want to have a street party you go ahead and have one."

Clearly a man that deserves to wear his underpants on the outside.

I have no idea

I don't know what this is all about, but the comments are wonderful;

Found them!

We got a message today from Akino's mum. Her sisters and all the cousins have been located. The house has been destroyed and that will make things a little difficult for a while, but everybody is well and in good spirits.

I'll let you know more as we hear.

Earthquake in Japan - Update

A couple of days ago we heard from one of Akino's cousins. He was away from home when the tsunami struck. Unfortunately he hasn't been able to get in touch with the family either, so at this stage they are still listed as missing.

Obviously I have been watching the news from Japan with great interest. There are around 500,000 people in evacuation centres and refuge camps at present and yesterday it began to snow. There are probably in excess of 10,000 people dead. Despite this, all the news seems to be centred on a nuclear reactor that so far has harmed perhaps 2 people (there are 2 maintenance workers missing).

I've spoken to a number of people in Tokyo over the past few days. It appears that the situation there is very difficult. Everyday items such as rice, toilet paper, eggs, milk and so on are difficult to obtain. Bottled water sells out as soon as it gets to the shelves. Many of the expats that I know in Tokyo have already left. Some of the Japanese that are there have left also, mainly for Osaka. The French government issues travel advice several days ago advising French nationals to leave Tokyo and yesterday the Australian government did the same.

If any of the readers are in Japan, please post a comment with your thoughts or impressions.

Earthquake in Japan

Thank you to all the folks that have asked after Akino's family in Japan. I can tell you that we have heard from all the immediate family (mum, dad and Shun) and they are all fine. Tokyo is quite chaotic at present and many of the supermarkets and shops have run out or are running low on food, but I have no doubt it will all be sorted in a few days.

There are members of the wider family that we are not sure about. There is an Aunty that lives in Kamaishi and another that lives in Aomori. We have not been able to contact either of them, but goth areas have been quite badly affected. Communications are very bad and it will likely be a few days before we hear more about it.

For those of you that know Eddy (Hideo), I can tell you that he is safe and well although he had a bit of fun getting home. At the time the earthquake hit, he was driving back to his office in Yokohama from a customer visit in Kawasaki. It's usually about 20-30 minutes drive. He left Kawasaki at 16:00 and arrived at his office at a little before 4:00am!! Of course there were no trains to get home to Saitama, so he spent the night at the office and eventually got home late on Saturday.

If I hear any more, I'll be sure to let you know.

Bloody Telstra

I am typing this from my hotel room in Japan. I'm here for work. I have meetings all week, some of them with rather significant organisations in Japan that I am hoping to do business with.

I've spent the last several weeks organising this, which probably deserved several blog entries but time did not permit. While I was organising all this, I realised that I would need a mobile number in Japan so that my customers could contact me. I've always had trouble with phones in Japan and have never been able to get my mobile to work here. One of my colleagues assured me that this trouble was all behind me as I now have a 3G phone which will work just fine.

Needless to say, when I arrived in Hong Kong this morning, my phone didn't work. I borrowed my colleague's phone and called Telstra and was told that my mobile did not have international roaming switched on. No matter, I was told, they can switch it on now and it will be working in 5 or 10 minutes. I just needed to switch off the phone and switch it back on again.

For the next hour and a half I periodically switched my phone on and off to no avail. Slightly panicked, I borrowed the phone once more. I called Telstra again and explained my problem. I need to speak to the international roaming department they said. You are the international roaming department I said. No, we just turn it on they said and put me through to the international roaming department. The international roaming department seemed to be a very unhelpful young man who told me that the international roaming would be turned on at 10:45. Why 10:45 I asked? Because it takes 2 hours he said. But the other person said it would only be 5 or 10 minutes and all you have to do is reboot your phone. Dunno why they would say that, he said, it takes 2 hours and you don't have to turn your phone on and off.

At 10:45, as I was boarding the plane to Japan, it still wasn't working. Just to be sure, I rebooted but no good.

Once I got to Tokyo I called Telstra again. I got the usual inane voice menus and messages and told that I need to talk to the international roaming department (thanks for that) before speaking to a woman who told me that she could see what the problem was and now it's fixed. What was the problem I asked. Well it's fixed now she said, it will be working in about 5 or 10 minutes, you just have to reboot your phone.

With very little hope in my heart, I have since been rebooting my phone periodically without any luck. I now think it might be easiest if I just redirect the phone.

Bloody Telstra.

Why haven't I posted anything lately

I have been kind of busy of late as I enrolled in another course.

This has the enormous advantage of getting me out of doing housework but the drawback of using up all my blog time for reading.

Anyway, I will endeavour to make one post per week and I am happy to hear your suggestions for topics.

Big news

I bought the chikenz an iPad.

I am in the good books.

Advice

I don't listen much to music. It's not that I don't like it, just that it doesn't interest me.

Instead, I listen quite a lot to podcasts. Mainly from ABC radio national, which, by the way, I recommend to you all most highly. I enjoy "Counterpoint", "The Law Report" and "The Religion Report". I also listen occasionally to the Slate Magazine podcast, but that does get on my nerves after a fairly short period. Recently I also discovered some Stephen Fry podcasts that have been the source of some amusement.

Anyway, all this is by way of a preamble, for today chikenz-watchers, I have some advice. The advice was gleaned from a podcast called "The Ark". It's a short programme (about 15 minutes long) about historical religious matters. I haven't listened to it for some time, but for reasons now lost to me, I noted down something from one of their programmes and I rediscovered it only recently. The particular programme that I am referring to was on the subject of some ancient Buddhist texts that had been found.

These texts surfaced in the 1990s and are over 1500 years old. The programme discussed their discovery and some of the research that is presently being undertaken. My advice to you today, is taken directly from one of these texts. It goes like this;

"If one should not find a wise companion, a well-behaved strong fellow, then like the king who has abandoned the realm that he had conquered, one should wander alone like the rhinoceros."

So then, my advice is that to be like the Buddha, one should strap a half a cricket stump to ones nose and paint oneself grey.