Japan’s elderly turn to life of crime to ease cost of living
What could be sadder than this? Apparently a large (and growing) percentage of the Japanese elderly can't get by on their state pensions, so they're turning to a life of crime (like shoplifting), since in jail, they get their basic needs met, which apparently their state incomes don't.
Japan's prison system is being driven to budgetary crisis by demographics, a welfare shortfall and a new, pernicious breed of villain: the recidivist retiree. And the silver-haired crooks, say academics, are desperate to be behind bars.
Crime figures show that about 35 per cent of shoplifting offences are committed by people over 60. Within that age bracket, 40 per cent of repeat offenders have committed the same crime more than six times.
Of course if this bankrupts the country, that doesn't exactly help anybody.
There is good reason, concludes a report, to suspect that the shoplifting crime wave in particular represents an attempt by those convicted to end up in prison — an institution that offers free food, accommodation and healthcare.
...
The geriatric crime wave is accelerating, and analysts note that the Japanese prison system — newly expanded and at about 70 per cent occupancy — is being prepared for decades of increases. Between 1991 and 2013, the latest year for which the Ministry of Justice publishes figures, the number of elderly inmates in jail for repeating the same offence six times has climbed 460 per cent.
The surging rates of crime among the elderly disguise a darker trend than mere contempt for the law, say economists and criminologists. Retiree crime is rising more quickly than the general demographic ascent into old age that will put 40 per cent of the Japanese population over 65 by the year 2060.
(Blue font mine, for emphasis).
And for a country with HUGE debt and (as this article indicates) very bad demographics, it's probably difficult to do the right thing and make the basic pension a livable amount with reasonable free healthcare, on a needs-tested basis. But if they don't, the society will slowly disintegrate.
(The thing I don't understand though, is that supposedly the Japanese workers typically have very high savings rates. That seems to be confirmed here: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/personal-savings If you click the "max" button, you see a long term gradually increasing very high savings rate, especially compared to countries like the US. Perhaps this is strongly biased toward the people with higher pay, so the people who don't save are really in trouble.)
This "silver haired crime wave" reminds me of the "Grey Dawn" episode of South Park. It also looks like doomer porn. Since Japan takes very few long term immigrants, their demographics problem is likely worse than the US's will be, but the first world in general is certainly headed that direction, with aging populations.
