Talk:Crime in Japan

Under-Reporting?

I heard that while crime is low in Nippon that one reason is because of under-reporting of crimes? Is this true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by OneiroPhobia (talk • contribs) 11:45, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes under-reporting or misreport of crimes is widespread. Keep in mind the concept of face saving and family sacrifice. Then you can understand why murders for instance are often reported as suicides by police or covered by family as simply a missing person that family has lost contact with. It is considered quite shameful to be a murder victim particularly to your family and community. Being a crime victim is sometimes taken as a sign of personal spiritual impurity or fate. Crimes also reflects badly on the family and community (and particularly the police) because they were unable to protect you.

Compare the standing of Japan with human rights groups to the low crime rate. There are valid reasons for the discrepancy. To the greatest extent possible the Japanese prefer that crime and "justice"/police work be done in the shadows. Minor crimes are often punished in the police station with beatings without benefit of going to official court. Only the fact that official court sentences are short and that Japan's police keep tight control on maiming "shadow justice" punishments keeps Japan from even lower ranking with human rights organizations. Self-defense is a crime in Japan -- even a fist raised against a gun WILL become reason for police punishment. Most human rights groups do agree with the Japanese that self-defense is the path to escalation of violence and feuds. On the other hand the willingness of Japanese police to be wrong in awarding punishment counts against their human rights.

So basically each society has its own trade off's for social control and dealing with crime and punishment. Thus Japan is no better or worse than most other countries, simply different and harder to observe statistically.69.23.121.234 (talk) 10:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Where do you get this? "Murders... are often reported as suicides" to "save face"? "It is considered quite shameful to be a murder victim"?? What kind of medieval, pseudo-psychology B.S. are you selling? In between some genuine or accepted points you've wedged in a bunch of opinion, and defecated some fabricated conclusions. Keep your spurious editorials to yourself. Boneyard90 (talk) 20:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Essay template

The introduction reads like an essay with a presumption that crime should increase with industrialization, and with leftist and rightist interpretations. The Social Factors section is an essay interpreting crime in a Ruth Benedict fashion. The Inhumane Crimes section attributes malaise to brutal crime. These essays should be removed from the encyclopedia article. Fg2 03:43, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Statistics

Use of the term "Robbery" is misleading if the intention is to provide statistics about theft. And if it does actually mean theft - then I think the statistics have been "cooked". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.27.250.213 (talk) 08:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

These statistics are misleading. They are from 1989. The United States has seen a massive decrease in crime in the ensuing 24 year period. Thats almost a quarter century. These statistics are as accurate as watching the NFL playoffs from 1989 and trying to decide what team is going to the the Superbowl in 2012. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.118.184.104 (talk) 03:51, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Plagiarism

http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/japan/crime.html

Did this article plagiarize the above page, or did the above page plagiarize this article? Giving that we're talking about Wikipedia, I'm going to assume the former. --70.131.51.228 (talk) 23:00, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

What about the growing instances of reported rape in japan. Like this Super Free thing? I hear the new opinion is that Japanese crime is much higher then previously thought. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.241.173 (talk) 23:09, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

There have been controversies in recent years over revelations that police have been doctoring the statistics. Some police officials had to resign. Police are also accused of doing little investigation as possible of deaths like suicides in order to keep the homicide rate low. For example, kids' deaths because their parents suicide and decided to take the kids with them are not considered murders. Autopsies are rare, so there's often little reason to designate a mysterious death a murder. I think the rape stat has always been thought to be underreported. Despite this, I don't know what you mean by "much higher". I haven't seen anything to suggest "much higher", just "somewhat higher". Remember we're talking about an abnormally small statistic to begin with. Even doubling it would give a preposterously low number. --C S (talk) 14:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

claim of importance of weapons control law

After adding the fact template after the assertion of the importance of the weapons control law in keeping crime low, I noticed that it had been taken almost word-for-word from the Library of Congress country report, the main change having been the removal of the word "effective," presumably to slightly increase objectivity/neutrality. However, this statement is still very vague and lacking in support. The only things the claim has going for it are that somebody in the US government made it and that Japan does, in fact, have low crime, which could be explained by a variety of other factors. What evidence is there that this law has actually been "important" in reducing crime, and is there a way of quantifying that importance? --Joel7687 (talk) 08:08, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

This is one of those things no one can "know" no matter how expert. I did just read a New York Times article that states that "experts" attribute the low crime rate to the law and the "tightly-knit social fabric". Since the Times is not known for shoddy journalism, I'm sure one can find plenty of experts that say this kind of thing. Whether you would consider their reasoning good "evidence" is another matter. --C S (talk) 14:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

About juvenile crime in Japan

According to the official statistics the highest peak of juvenile crime in Japan occured between 1981-1983, not 1990s or 2000s. Also the highest peak of juvenile felony occured in 1960s. These facts should be mentioned in the article, while many Japanese do not know them and think juvenile crime rates in 2000s are much higher than ever. --RekishiEJ (talk) 19:33, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Social Consequences

Removed the social consequences part about gun laws. It is a legal restriction and the implication is that gun control reduced crime, something debatable and not neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikiiscool123 (talk • contribs) 02:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

removed from another article, possibly worthwhile

This was from an article on pressures placed by parents, things like In the first six months of 2001, 532 murders were committed by juveniles can be useful if sourced. --Chris (クリス • フィッチュ) (talk) 04:22, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

stress related murders of the 90s and later

(1997) Kobe serial murder - a fourteen year old boy became a serial murderer. This spurred copycats over the next few years.

(1999) A Tokyo woman named Yamada Mitsuko, 35, killed the young daughter of a neighbor. The press was quick to label it the "entrance exam murder." They noted that Yamada and the victim's mother had tried to put their daughters in the same elite kindergarten. Only two-year-old Wakayama Haruna was admitted. Commentators concluded that Yamada's jealousy drove her to strangle the little girl in a toilet, stuff the body in a bag and bury it in the backyard of Yamada's parents' home in Shizuoka, 75 km (50 miles) southwest of Tokyo http://www.proquest.com/ Mutsuko, Murakami. "Mommy Dearest" Asiaweek 26 October 2007

(2000) A High school baseball player attacked four of his teammates with a metal bat, fracturing one’s skull. This was the result of being teased for his haircut. He then took the bat home and killed his mother to spare her his shame.

(2001) A second bat murder was committed to spare the mother the embarrassment of bad grades. In the first six months of 2001, 532 murders were committed by juveniles. The killings prompted Japanese television and magazines to warn people not to provoke teenagers on trains or subway carts .

Crime among the elderly

There has been a trend of crime increasing among the elderly. It's been reported in the popular press although to date there's been very little academic treatment. It first came to public attention following the release of the Ministry of Justice whitepaper on crime (in Japanese).

I haven't edited any of the Japan related subject so far, but I plan on adding a section "Crime among the elderly" to this article. If that's a bad idea, someone tell me now. All up I figure maybe two paragraphs --Thepm (talk) 01:08, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Is crime increasing or decreasing in Japan?

The second sentence in this article reads "While crime is still infrequent in Japan, the past decade has seen increasing crime" and a citation to a New York Times article saying that crime is still infrequent but rates have "crept up" (while not providing any numbers). Meanwhile, further down the page is a statistic saying overall crimes in 2012 are half of what they were in 2002, citing the Yomiuri Shimbun.

Which is it? Is crime going down or going up?

Granted, there is underreporting of some crime in Japan, but barring some huge unreported shift in Japanese society, crime would not have gone down that drastically from underreporting alone. I suspect the perception of crime rates "creeping up" is a product of confirmation bias coloring the reading of the data. Am I wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.212.105.122 (talk) 04:20, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

We need a statistic for the claim in the introduction.

Seriously that is like the prime example of a claim that needs a backing to it. I dont dobt its correct, but really some one get a source on that. I wouldn't know how to do it, im just passing by. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:5:A180:7C3:F0AA:446E:52B9:507E (talk) 05:10, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

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Crime =/= Homicide

The opening statement that Japan has one of the lowest crime rates links to a, slightly outdated, report on Homicide rate. While this does indicate a low violent crime rate, at least when it comes to reported incidences, it tells the reader nothing about the overall crime rate which can be non-fatal or even avoid physical harm altogether. Additionally the single sentence opener is so brief that I would nominate this article as a stub desperately in need of meat on it's skeleton. Fritz1776 (talk) 16:20, 10 February 2018 (UTC)

"Close-knit relationships"

Their early operations were usually close-knit, and the leader had father-son relationships.

Father-son relationships... with whom? --causa sui (talk) 02:41, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

“Sex Trafficking” section need specificity

There’s nothing on the rate of incidents, here or on the linked article. Additionally, just saying that both Japanese and foreign women are trafficked in Japan is kind of a given. It would be nice to append statistics to that, maybe break them down by gender as well.

Also, as well as mentioning that they often suffer trauma is not matching the rest of the article tonally. Many people experience trauma due to murder and other crimes but their experiences are not detailed in this article, as it is written in a more academic manner to discuss the statistics of crime in Japan. hela's_hot_as_hades (talk) 15:28, 1 February 2024 (UTC)