The number of elderly criminals being caught by Japanese police has rocketed, the Japanese Justice Ministry said yesterday, with pensioners committing almost 50 times more assaults than two decades ago.
The number of criminals aged 65 or older booked by police last year increased by 475 from the previous year to 48,637, more than six times as many as 20 years ago, the ministry said in its latest white paper on crime.
Most crimes committed by elderly people were shoplifting or other thefts, but violent crimes were also on the rise, the ministry said.
A significant increase was seen in the rates of violent crime committed by elderly people, with 49.5 times more assaults than in 1992 and 8.7 times more bookings for bodily injury, the white paper said.
In a more extreme example, local media reported in April that a 97-year-old man with a walking aid was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after he allegedly attacked an 84-year-old woman with a Japanese sword in central Japan.
However, the trend of rising crime among the elderly goes against that of society at large, where the overall number of crimes in Japan fell 5.8 percent year-on-year to 2.14 million last year, its ninth straight year of decline.
Japan’s population is aging rapidly, but, says the paper, not quickly enough to account for all these crimes.
“The speed of the increase of the number of elderly criminals overwhelms the increase of the population group,” the white paper said.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
DEADLY TASTE TEST: Erin Patterson tried to kill her estranged husband three times, police said in one of the major claims not heard during her initial trial Australia’s recently convicted mushroom murderer also tried to poison her husband with bolognese pasta and chicken korma curry, according to testimony aired yesterday after a suppression order lapsed. Home cook Erin Patterson was found guilty last month of murdering her husband’s parents and elderly aunt in 2023, lacing their beef Wellington lunch with lethal death cap mushrooms. A series of potentially damning allegations about Patterson’s behavior in the lead-up to the meal were withheld from the jury to give the mother-of-two a fair trial. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Beale yesterday rejected an application to keep these allegations secret. Patterson tried to kill her
RSS