Figures released from Japanese authorities suggest more elderly-person-related crime has been handled by the police than juvenile crime. This is an unusual trend and has been happening for the past six months. By elderly this is not the “middle-aged,” but those aged over 65.
Japan’s National Police Agency has been publishing age-related crime data since 1989. Each six-month period has shown a pattern that matches most developed nations: crime is a young person’s game. Until now.
For the first six months of 2015, action was taken against 23,000 elderly people (aged 65 years plus) compared with action taken against those aged 14 to 19 years old (20,000 incidences.) These figures, BBC World summarizes, are in the context of a general decline in the crime rate throughout Japan over the past 10 years and the figures, per head of population, are relatively low compared with U.S., Canada, and most of Europe. The only slide in this general decline is a rise in “elderly crime” which is 10 percent up on the trend.
The reason seems to be a demographic consequence rather than a network of older-person led gangs. The Japanese population has been becoming progressively older. As it stands, near 25 percent of the 127 million people who live in Japan are above retirement age. With such a disproportionately high number of people aged over 65, the biggest potential group for engaging in nefarious activities are those within this demographic category. There may also be social and economic factors at play: low incomes and living in isolation can also lead to desperate behaviors.
