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Japan faces a wave of crime among seniors – the proportion of crimes committed by people over 65 has been steadily increasing over the last 20 years. BBC correspondent Ed Butler examines why.
In a rehab center in Hiroshima dedicated to the social reintegration of ex-detainees, Toshio Takata, 69, said he had broken the law because he was poor. He wanted a place to live for free, even though he was behind bars.
"I arrived at retirement age and ran out of money, so I thought maybe I could live for free if I lived in jail," he says. -he.
"I stole a bike and went to the police station and said," Look, I stole it. "
The strategy worked. It was the first time that Toshio was 62, but Japanese courts were busy on small flights. It was enough for him to be sentenced to one year in prison.
Weak, thin and with an easy laugh, Toshio looks nothing like the stereotype of a criminal, let alone anyone who could threaten women with a knife. But after being released, that's exactly what he did.
"I went to a park and I only threatened them, I did not intend to hurt, I simply showed them the knife, waiting for one from them calls the police, one of them did it. "
Toshio has decorated the prison cell with In total, Toshio has spent half of the last eight years behind bars.
I ask him if he likes to stay in jail and he points to an additional financial benefit: the pension is always paid even when he is in jail.
"It's not that I like it, but I can stay for free," he says. "And when I left, I saved money, so it 's not so painful.
Toshio's case illustrates a striking trend in Japanese crime.
In an extremely law-abiding society, an increasing number of crimes are committed by people over 65 years of age.
In 1997, about one in twenty convictions came from people in this age group. Twenty years later, however, this proportion has risen to more than one in five – a rate that exceeds the growth of this part of the population (although older people now account for more than a quarter of the country's population). .
And like Toshio, many of these older offenders are repeat offenders. Of the 2,500 people over 65 sentenced in 2016, over one-third had more than five previous convictions.
Another example is Keiko (fictitious name). At age 70, she also told me that poverty was her loss.
"I could not live with my husband, I had no place to live, no place to stay, it was my only choice: to fly," he reveals.
"Even 80-year-old women who can not walk right are committing crimes because they can not afford to buy food, money."
We spoke a few months ago in a shelter for former detainees. But it has already been said that she was again arrested and that she is serving her sentence for stealing a store.
Theft, especially in stores, is the main crime committed by older offenders. They usually steal cheap food in some markets where they attend regularly.
Michael Newman, a demographer at the Tokyo-based Custom Products Research Center, points out that it is very difficult to live with the "small" basic pension granted by the government in Japan.
In an article published in 2016, he calculates that only the costs of rent, food and medical care are enough to leave indebted beneficiaries if they do not have another source of income – and this without taking into account the expenses of electricity or clothing, for example.
Previously, it was common for children to take care of their parents, but the lack of economic opportunities in the provinces has caused many young people to move out, leaving parents alone.
A recidivism is a form of "return to prison", "There are three meals a day and no bills to pay – Photo: BBC
" Retirees do not want to be a burden to their children and feel that if they can not survive with state retirement, a burden goes to jail, "he says.
A recidivism is a way to" go back to prison ", where there are three meals a day and no bills to pay, he adds.
Newman points out that suicide is also becoming more prevalent among older people – another way to respect what they may regard as " their duty to withdraw. "
The Director of With Hiroshima, the rehabilitation center where I met Toshio Takata, also notes that the changes in Japanese families have contributed to the wave of crime among people elderly, but he insists on psychological rather than financial consequences res.
"In the final badysis, the relationship between people has changed, people have become more isolated, they are not part of this society, they can not cope with loneliness," says Kanichi Yamada, 85 years old, who was child when debris after the launch of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.
"Among the elderly who commit crimes, many are facing this moment of middle age." There are triggers, they have lost their spouse or their children and they just can not deal with it … In general, people do not commit crimes if they have someone else. who take care of them and support them. "
Toshio's version that he entered the world of crime because of poverty is only an" excuse, "Kanichi Yamada suggests," the crux of the problem is your loneliness. " one of the factors that led him to recidivate, he said, was the prospect of his imprisoned society.
It is true that Toshio is alone in the world, his parents are dead and he has lost contact with the two older brothers, who did not answer his calls and he lost contact with his ex-wife, whom he divorced, and his three children.
I wonder if he thinks the situation could have happened been dif s' he had a wife and a family. He says yes.
"If they were there to support me, I would not have done it."
Consequences for the system
Michael Newman notes that the Japanese government has expanded penitentiary capacity and recruited more women guards (the number of elderly women sentenced increases particularly rapidly, but from a low level ). He also noted the soaring medical treatment of prisoners.
There were other changes as well, as I saw with my own eyes in a prison in Fuchu, a suburb of Tokyo, where almost a third of the prisoners now have more than 60 years.
There are many marches in Japanese prisons – marches and screams. But here it seems more difficult to apply military training. I see gray-haired inmates behind a platoon, who have trouble keeping up. One of them is on crutches.
"We had to improve the facilities here," says Masatsugu Yazawa, director of education at the prison.
"We have handrails, special toilets, there are clbades for the older prisoners."
He drives me to see one of them. It starts with a karaoke, which plays a famous song about the meaning of life. Inmates are encouraged to sing with them. Some seem very moved.
"We sing to show them that real life has come out of prison and happiness is there," says Yazawa. "But they still think that life in prison is better and many come back."
Michael Newman argues that it would be much better – and much less expensive – to take care of the elderly without the costs of court proceedings and incarceration.
"We have budgeted a construction project for a retirement home complex where people would pay half of the pension, but would receive food, medical care, etc., while staying in the same house. Having fun at karaoke with other residents and having one would cost a lot less than government spending at the moment, "he says.
But he also points out that the tendency of Japanese courts to apply jail sentences for small thefts "is a bit bizarre in terms of punishment proportional to crime".
"Treating and applying a two-year sentence can cost at least 8.4 million yen (about R $ 282,000) to treat and apply a two-year sentence," he wrote. Newman in his 2016 report.
It may be a hypothetical example, but I have met an old man in prison who has lived a similar experience. He was sentenced to two years in prison for his second offense: stealing a glbad of pepper worth $ 12.
And Morio Mochizuki, who provided security for about 3,000 outlets in Japan, is getting tougher with thieves.
"Even though they only steal a piece of bread," says Masayuki Sho, of the Japanese Prison Service, "the trial determined that it was appropriate to stop them."
"We must teach them to live in society without committing crimes."
I do not know if the penitentiary system was able to teach this lesson to Toshio Takata, but when I ask him if he is already planning the next crime, the answer is no.
"No, that's enough," he says.
"I do not want to do it again, I'm going to be 70, I'll be old and frail the next time, I will not do it again."
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