When I first heard this on NPR’s BBC World News segment, I couldn’t help but laugh; hilarious images of grandmothers in ninja suits mugging seven-elevens while their fellow “golden girls” waited in the getaway car smoking hash flashed across my mind. The somber tone of the news correspondent as he dutifully reported that “criminality among the senior citizen community is on the rise” didn’t help cure my chuckles.
Yet, all jokes aside, it turns out to be a serious problem in a country with one of largest elderly populations in the world. Officials from Japan’s Justice Ministry found that, “Elderly crime is a serious problem that our society must shoulder in the years to come. With baby boomers becoming elderly within five years, we have reached a state where we must make a fundamental review of anti-crime measures in a fast-aging society.” When asked in the NPR interview why this was happening, a Japanese spokesperson gave three reasons: economics, loneliness, and unstable living environments. She went on to explain that most of the elderly that were committing these crimes, particularly shop-lifting and pick-pocketing, were doing so because they felt that they would receive better care in prison. The Japan Times reported that, “In August, a 79-year-old woman went on a slashing spree in Tokyo’s bustling shopping and entertainment district of Shibuya, wounding two female passersby before being arrested by police. The attacker reportedly said she was homeless, had no money and thought if she committed a crime the police would care for her.”
It’s not that they are necessarily crazy, but lonely desperation is definitely a factor. With “over one-fifth of Japan’s population of 128 million is now aged 65 and over,” a figure which is “expected to double by midcentury,” Yahoo News detailed that “rising elderly crime has also affected Japanese prisons, forcing them to renovate their facilities, modify forced labor and provide nursing care.”
The fact that this problem exists in Japan was surprising. A tendency for elderly neglect is something generally associated with the West rather than the East – a part of the world where elders’ wisdom and age-old traditions are placed on a pedestal, rather than in a nursing home. Although, this discussion could easily nose-dive into a debate on the impact of the westernization of Japan, globalization, and some Japanese’s concern that the country’s losing its core values and long-nurtured traditions as a result, I’ll put geopolitical history on the backburner for this one.
Ultimately, the rapidity of globalization coupled with an unavoidable natural phenomenon has led to a failure of the traditional support systems for the elderly. Although I have yet to hear of a wave of violent purse-snatching grannie brigades in other countries, questions of adequate elderly care has become pervasive not only in Japan, but across Asia.
It looks like the Japanese government has some work ahead of them to start building and equipping more old-ages homes, but is the possibility of relying on the traditional family support system completely lost?
