Abstract
In this paper the crime problem in Japan is analyzed demographically by the use of framework presented by David Riesman et al. As they foresaw, Japan seems to move toward a stagnant society with advancement of aging. We see many young persons with the social character of being other-directed. The delinquency committed by them is different from that committed by previous youngsters with the social character of inner-directedness. We see prevalence of a social-typed delinquency instead of antisocial-typed one. However, the reaction to juvenile delinquency has become harsh since the upsurge of movement by victim crimes.
With advancement of aging the crimes by old-aged persons have increased. Then, the treatment of old-aged offenders becomes important in the criminal justice system. I will explain how old-aged offenders receive the protective treatment especially in prisons. Then, the importance of introduction of diversion program for them is emphasized from the viewpoint of labeling perspectives and the cost benefit.
To cope with decrease in manpower, we begin to discuss whether the shortage of manpower would have to be made up by immigrants. Conservative people think that our social order would be greatly damaged if we accepted immigrants, especially those as plain laborers. I will explain that their thought is not justified by analyzing the change in crimes by foreigners since 1980.
The Japanese experience in practices to cope with crime problems may be useful to other countries toward aging.
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Notes
- 1.
During the baby boom from 1947 to 1949, about 8,000,000 babies were born, in which 2,696,638 were born in 1949, the peak of the boom.
- 2.
During the period of high economic growth, there was an increase in the percentage of entrance to senior high schools after graduation from junior ones. The increase in the percentage was from 51.5% in 1955 to 70.7% in 1965 and to 91.9% in 1975. Although education in a senior high school is not compulsive, most young people have a chance to receive education in a senior high school if they wish.
- 3.
Boryokudan, a Japanese gangsters’ group, succeeded in recruiting many young dropouts as its members (Yokoyama, 2000, p. 3).
- 4.
Around 1965 there was great cultural emphasis upon success. It invited a prevalence of the mode of innovation even among juvenile delinquents through the use of institutionally proscribed but often effective means of attaining the simulacra of success: wealth and power.
- 5.
Previously, male youngsters behaved violently like a carnivorous animal under the subculture of being proud of masculinity. Owing to the decline of such subculture, they do not attack others by the use of physical violence like an herbivorous animal. They are called “herbivorous-typed persons” in Japan.
- 6.
We still see many juvenile offenders in a juvenile training school who have grown up in the poor protective environment, although their total number decreases.
- 7.
According to Merton the character of retreatism is the retreat from both cultural goals and institutional means.
- 8.
During the period from 1995 to 2012, the rate of young people between 15 and 34 without going to a school, participating in family affairs, or commuting to a place of work among people between 15 and 34 years old rose double and reached 2.3% (White Paper on Children and Youngsters in 2013, p. 37).
- 9.
The adaption mode of rebellion leads persons outside the environing social structure to envisage and seek to bring into being a greatly modified social structure. Young people of this type were participants in a radical students’ movement around 1970. Recently, we no longer see this type, because most young people are not interested in social problems and political issues.
- 10.
The ritualistic type of adaption involves the abandoning or scaling down of the cultural goal of pecuniary success and rapid social mobility to the point where aspirations can be satisfied. On the other hand, a person assuming this adaption type continues to abide almost compulsively by institutional norms.
- 11.
According to the results of research of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to about 3000 young people between 15 and 39 in March in 2013, about 63% of all respondents answered that they were satisfied with their current life (Asahi Shimbun on September 11, 2013). Among all respondents answering it, about 83% of their reasons for their satisfaction were related to private affairs such as their family life and their hobby. This result shows the prevalence of other-directedness, because inner-directed persons find satisfaction in learning and working rather than their private life. On the other hand, only 19% of respondents answered that Japan’s future is bright. They cherish anxiousness about the future as persons of the other-directedness type.
- 12.
The fear spreads in the prevalence of the use of a smartphone, because a person may be neglected by friends if he/she does not write a reply immediately after receiving a mail.
- 13.
The prevalence of such behavior is sociologically analyzed as deviant, as Merton pointed out (1968, p. 236).
- 14.
The percentages of each age group among all non-traffic Penal Code offenders were 10.0% in the age group of 14 and 15 years old, 8.2% of 16 and 17, 4.7% of 18 and 19, 9.0% of the age group of between 20 and 24, 7.0% of between 25 and 29, 13.7% of between 30 and 39, 13.0% of between 40 and 49, 10.5% of between 50 and 59, 6.9% of between 60 and 64, 5.5% of between 65 and 69, and 11.4% of 70 and over 70.
- 15.
Before the upsurge of the movement by victim crimes, neighbors sympathized with even an offender having committed some heinous offense under an extenuating condition. For example, they sympathized with a single mother killing a baby in an extremely miserable situation. When such a case occurred, many neighbors petitioned a criminal court to mitigate the punishment imposed on the offender. However, the human tie in the community has become weak. In addition, the tolerance level against offenders is lowered under the influence of the movement by crime victims who emphasize rights of crime victims, especially value of life of a killed person. Therefore, more and more offenders with an extenuating condition are sentenced to the imprisonment without its suspension.
- 16.
Owning to over-crowdedness the percent exceeded 100% in 2005.
- 17.
Prisoners confined for a long period usually cannot find a person to support them after their release on parole. In addition, they become too old to find a job after returning to a society. Therefore, it becomes difficult for them to be released on parole before the expiration of their prison term. Especially, those with life sentences are destined to be confined until their death. This phenomenon marks a breakdown of treatment in a prison under the rehabilitation model.
- 18.
Over-crowdedness in prisons for female offenders still continues. The percentage of the offenders per the capacity of the prisons remained 103.4% at the end of 2012. In such a situation female security officers, most of whom are younger than prisoners, have heavy work load.
- 19.
In the late 1960s the labeling theorists in the United States advocated to divert cases of a minor offense from criminal justice at the earlier stage in order to avoid being strongly stigmatized as a criminal.
- 20.
With advancement of aging we witness increasingly such a case that old-aged persons have to take care of their diseased spouse in a nuclear family. When they become desperate owing to nursing fatigue, they may kill their spouse by the intension of relieving their spouse of pain and anguish or according to the spouse’s death wish. In such a case most old-aged murderers have few possibility of committing crime again because of the lack of criminal tendency. However, as I mentioned before, even in such cases more and more offenders are sentenced to the imprisonment without its suspension.
- 21.
When I visited Yokosuka Prison, I heard about an old-aged prisoner serving for his term of 2 years and a half who was convicted of stealing a packed box lunch twice owing to his impoverishment. For the first stealing he was sentenced to 1-year imprisonment with its suspension for 2 years, as he did not have any criminal career. Soon after being released he was caught for stealing a packed box lunch again. Then, he was sentenced to the aggravated imprisonment of a year and a half as a recidivist. As the suspension of the previous sentence was revoked, he was compelled to serve for 2 years and a half in Yokosuka Prison.
- 22.
At that time Japan was a target country for human trafficking from neighboring developing countries.
- 23.
The purpose of the total measures is to prevent the dwelling area of many foreigners from becoming a hotbed of crimes.
- 24.
To make up for shortage of manpower of plain laborers, Japan has used the trainee system since 1981 (Yokoyama, 2016b, p. 3). However, as this system has many problems, we should establish the fundamental policy on immigration without using the term of “visiting foreigners.”
- 25.
By the agreement with the Philippines in 2006 and that with Indonesia in 2007, Japan accepted young people coming from both countries as trainees to master the way to treat patients as a nurse. However, most of them failed to pass the national examination to become a nurse before the expiration of the period for their permitted stay because the examination is carried out in the Japanese language. As a result fewer young people now come from neighboring countries to work as a nurse in Japan which has a shortage of nurses and an increased need for them due to the enormous aged population.
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Yokoyama, M. (2018). Changes in Crime and Reactions to Crime in Japan Becoming Stagnant with Aging. In: Liu, J., Miyazawa, S. (eds) Crime and Justice in Contemporary Japan. Springer Series on Asian Criminology and Criminal Justice Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69359-0_2
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