A History of Japan: From Stone Age to Superpower (86 page)

The crime rate for juveniles (14–20 year-olds) has dropped steadily since the early years of the millennium. Put in rounded figures, in 2000 there were 132,000 juvenile crimes; in 2005 there were 124,000; in 2006 there were 113,000; in 2007 there were 103,000; and in 2008 there were 91,000. There is, however, a worrying factor, and that is the gruesome nature of some juvenile crimes, notably murder. As a well-known example, there is the 1997 murder of two young children in K
be by a 14-year-old boy and the beheading of one of them – the head being placed on the murderer’s school gates. At that stage the culprit was deemed a minor, being under 16 years of age, and the law was changed to start accountability at 14 years as a result, and has now further reduced to 12 years. Other examples include the 2003 murder of a 4-year-old by a 12-year-old boy in Nagasaki (pushed off a roof); the beating to death the same year of a young teenager by a 13-year-old boy in Okinawa; in 2004 the throat-cutting murder of a classmate by an 11-year-old girl in Sasebo; in 2005 a 16-year-old girl slowly poisoned her mother and kept a log of progress on the web; in 2007 a 17-year-old beheaded his mother and carried the head into a police station; in 2008 a teenager (exact age unclear) pushed a complete stranger under a train, saying he simply wanted to kill someone. More recently, on 3 March 2011, in Kumamoto, a 20-year-old admitted to the casual murder by strangulation of a 3-year-old child in a supermarket toilet, with no obvious motive.

Though he was somewhat older than 20, one should not overlook the nation-shocking case of Kat
Tomohiro, who in June 2008, aged 25 and thus still a young man, deliberately slammed a truck into a crowd of people in the popular Akihabara shopping district of T
ky
, then proceeded to stab passers-by, killing seven people and wounding ten. He gave no clear motive, though it was premeditated, and it is believed he may have been influenced by violent video games and/or felt himself inadequate. Akihabara, with all its state-of-the-art electronic goods, is known as ‘the cradle of modern Japanese youth culture’, and it is surely no coincidence that he chose that location, travelling 100 km from his home in Susuno, Shizuoka. He was known as an
otaku
(a computer geek or nerd),
⁵⁷
which is another group of young people who seem to prefer the company of their computers and video games over living humans – in fact, Kat
is alleged to have said that he was ‘only interested in two-dimensional girlfriends’.
⁵⁸
In March 2011 he was sentenced to death.

Clearly, though Japan is one of the safest countries in the world in terms of gratuitous violence, there are still problems.

But of course young people alone cannot be blamed for crime. Not only do politicians continue to get involved in scandals, setting a poor example, in 2010 it was discovered that there had been quite significant benefit fraud committed by the middle-aged or elderly, claiming benefits such as pensions for a supposedly living but actually long dead spouse or parent or grandparent. In one case, that of Kat
S
gen, who was supposed to be alive and at 111 years of age T
ky
’s oldest male, his mummified corpse was found in his family home – he had in fact died 32 years earlier. His granddaughter was arrested on suspicion of fraudulent receipt of his pension funds, and the police fear such crimes may be wide-spread.

One result of this was a national survey, which uncovered serious problems with records, especially at local government level. From those records it had been believed that there were almost 300,000 centenarians in Japan, but in fact only 40,399 have been confirmed, with a whopping 234,354 now classified as unconfirmed. Of those more than 230,000 unconfirmed very elderly persons, over 77,000 formerly listed as active in local records would have to have been aged 120 years or more, and almost a thousand (specifically 884) would have to have been aged 150 years or older. Though the figures given above are seemingly precise, giving an impression of statistical reliability, the fact remains that the record-keeping has been seriously deficient. This is especially poor for a country that is supposed to keep good records and moreover treat their elderly with respect. The authorities claim that this discovery will have almost no impact on longevity figures, as ‘males older than 98 and women older than 103 are not factored into life expectancy calculations’, but surely this must have very significant bearing on the proportionality of ‘super aged’ within the ‘elderly’ bracket of 65 years plus.
⁵⁹
One slight if irreverent saving grace for Japan in this embarrassment is that, as confirmed by reactions on various western blog sites, criticism has been softened as there is a certain comical air about the situation – with all respect to the long-since dearly departed. The ‘loss’ of more than 230,000 centenarians is surely material for a skit – Little Bo Peep springs to mind – and claiming that long-dead people are alive is reminiscent of the famous ‘Parrot’ sketch in
Monty Python
.

Another example of bad press for the nation, far worse in terms of international image, is that of whaling, which Japan has continued to carry out in the face of widespread criticism from most of the world. Whaling is said by the Japanese authorities to be a cultural practice but this is questionable in terms of strength of tradition. Moreover, Japan has continued whaling under the even more questionable claim that it is all about research to help preserve the whales, and there have even been
accusations of bribery of Pacific nations to win support in the International Whaling Commission. In recent years there have been increasingly serious and even life-threatening confrontations in the Southern Ocean between the Japanese whaling vessels and anti-whaling vessels, such as Sea Shepherd, which are trying to obstruct them. In February 2011, the Japanese fleet was so harried that it returned home, an action perhaps suggesting that Japan might be open to more constructive discussions in the future. The
Press
of Christchurch in New Zealand (New Zealand having responsibilities for much of the Southern Ocean) ran a particularly strong editorial on 19 February 2011: