Crime by elderly on the rise in ageing Japan: govt

[Coventina]

Source: Reuters

TOKYO (Reuters) - Crime by elderly Japanese has doubled over the past five years and is likely to keep increasing, posing a serious challenge to one of the world's most rapidly aging societies, a government report said on Friday.

Factors ranging from lower income and loneliness to an unstable living environment have helped push up crime by those aged 65 or over, and the number of such crimes is growing faster than the elderly population itself, the report added.

"The issue of elderly offenders poses a big problem that our society must be burdened with," the annual report on crime by the justice ministry said.

"As the generation of baby boomers becomes elderly within five years, we are at a stage where we must have a fundamental review on how to prevent crime in a clearly aging society."



Read more: http://in.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idINTRE4A60UY20081107

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Mods, this was not posted as an attempt to be funny. This is a heartbreaking problem, and one that I think we are going to be seeing in our own society before too long...

We have a whole generation of boomers who are about to retire with no money in the middle of an economic crisis...

[curse of greyface]

1. I know this is a serious topic...but

I keep picturing a getaway car going forty miles an hour in the left lane with its right blinker on. :)

[Coventina]

2. okay, I'll admit

I LOLd at your reply! :D

[Art_from_Ark]

5. 40 miles an hour

would be considered "speeding" on most Japanese roads.

[Indenturedebtor]

8. Dude I just hurt myself laughing

:rofl:

[Javaman]

15. "Sir! drop the blow fish and step away from the counter!" nt

[LeftyMom]

3. Video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygy7UDADXDg

[sasquatch]

6. Beat me to it

:D

[NJCher]

9. Senile delinquents!

Cher

[kskiska]

4. Shoplifting

Lots of that in here, too - especially Florida. Wal-Mart doesn't even prosecute over 65 and thefts under $25.

[sasquatch]

7. They couldn't hold a candle to Midlo's Bunco Brigade

:D

[fasttense]

10. When people are hungry and have no money, they will steal.

Japan's economic system is almost Fascism with its support of corporations and growing poverty among the masses.

Even quiet, weak, demoralized people will become thieves if they are hungry enough.

[entanglement]

11. Sorry to hear that. Japan should overcome its xenophobia and allow workers to migrate

there from poorer nations, pay them good wages, make sure they are treated equally and allowed to become citizens. That, IMHO, is the best solution for all the problems a nation with rapidly rising median age like Japan faces. Unfortunately, I don't see something like that happening in the near future. Either nativist thinking will prevail and immigrants be kept out of Japan altogether, or the greedy capitalists will contrive to create a new exploited immigrant underclass with no rights.

[comtec]

12. HOW would that help Japan?

They HAVE a strong young eager work force.
what they lack are JOBS!

[The2ndWheel]

14. More people in Japan?

You want a country with the land mass of Japan, few domestic resources, and 130 million people or so living there already, to import more people?

[WriteDown]

16. Considering they have entire villages...

disappearing due to lack of births, I would have to say yes.

[The2ndWheel]

18. Isn't the whole point of industrialism and development to have fewer people?

If you're just migrating people from poor young countries, to wealthy aging countries, then the developing world can never catch up, and just becomes a baby factory for the developed countries, since those developed countries will then require more and more immigrants to keep their system up and running.

You could make the entire world into one single system, where there is no difference between developed and developing nations, since they would all be the same state. Then it wouldn't matter if villages in Japan were disappearing due to lack of births. Europe's aging populations wouldn't matter. The aging population in the US wouldn't matter. Even the concept of immigration would be taken off the table as an issue.

At some point in the future, if all this progress is supposed to lower population levels, the global population would begin to age, villages would begin to disappear...where do we migrate people from then?

[WriteDown]

19. Depends on what you consider equal....

Japan is a beautiful and technologically amazing place. They've also done a very good job of blending nature and technology as some of their countryside is incredible. If you are willing to let Japan disappear, then you have to have an equivalent take its place. I can't think of anywhere in the world like Japan or that could take its place.

[The2ndWheel]

20. Is Japan still Japan if all you're doing is moving people from other countries

to replace actual Japanese people?

"I can't think of anywhere in the world like Japan or that could take its place."

Then why move the world to Japan to take its place? Would it be along the lines of a corporate merger? Where the brand name and products are the same, but it's really not the same?

[WriteDown]

21. So by people moving to the US

it is not the US anymore. Most people who move anywhere adopt the culture and customs of the places they are moving to. And as they marry and have children with the native population, they integrate even further.

[The2ndWheel]

22. Exactly. Everywhere becomes the same anywhere you go

"Most people who move anywhere adopt the culture and customs of the places they are moving to."

Except for the people who founded the US.

Which is why bringing the world to Japan just to keep Japan going could lead to Japan no longer being a unique place.

[WriteDown]

23. Uh...

Who's culture should the British have adopted? There were 100's. I am arguing the exact opposite. Japan will continue to be unique if they import people. Knowing Japan though, they are likely just going to ramp up their efforts to promote births of native Japanese.

[MrsBrady]

13. are parents not living with children anymore....

or are their children choosing to live away from home???

Why has that stopped?

For Instance, that older woman's parents died, but where are her children?

I know that is a big part of the culture there. Where is the disconnect, I wonder?

[WriteDown]

17. What children?

The birthrate in Nihon is below nil. That is what is leading to a lot of their problems.

[Mari333]

24. Senior services here in my part of Michigan is a mess

small staff, no monies, people living in the boonies alone with no help, no food, no heat. If they steal for food, who can blame them?