Japanese seniors leading crime wave
Japanese prisons are being expanded this year to accommodate an increasing number of criminals being branded as superannuated troublemakers, with people aged 65 and over being responsible for one in seven offences.
In 1990 this aged group was responsible for one in 50 crimes, and in 1998 this had increased to one in 25.
The surge in older crime has forced the government to plan three new prison wards specially fitted with metal walkers and support rails to handle at least 1,000 senior citizens.
The most common crimes committed are assaults – which have increased by a factor of seven in the past decade – shoplifting, and pocket picking.
Murders by people 65 and older have jumped to 152, with one 80-year-old woman saying she suffocated her 75-year-old husband because she was “fed up with being ordered around and made to do his work”.
Commenting on the figures, Koichi Hama, a Professor of Criminology at
It’s very difficult to live on their small pensions, so if they don’t have relatives to support them they get backed into a financial corner and become isolated.
They start shoplifting occasionally, then more and more”.
