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Jail is not top of most people's bucket list of places to visit, but for some it is becoming increasingly attractive. I had heard anecdotal stories of homeless in the UK committing petty crimes in the hope of being given a warm bed and a meal, but in Japan it seems that the elderly are taking things to a whole new level:
Japan is in the grip of an elderly crime wave - the proportion of crimes committed by people over the age of 65 has been steadily increasing for 20 years. The BBC's Ed Butler asks why.
At a halfway house in Hiroshima - for criminals who are being released from jail back into the community - 69-year-old Toshio Takata tells me he broke the law because he was poor. He wanted somewhere to live free of charge, even if it was behind bars.
"I reached pension age and then I ran out of money. So it occurred to me - perhaps I could live for free if I lived in jail," he says.
"So I took a bicycle and rode it to the police station and told the guy there: 'Look, I took this.'"
The plan worked. This was Toshio's first offence, committed when he was 62, but Japanese courts treat petty theft seriously, so it was enough to get him a one-year sentence.
Small, slender, and with a tendency to giggle, Toshio looks nothing like a habitual criminal, much less someone who'd threaten women with knives. But after he was released from his first sentence, that's exactly what he did.
"I went to a park and just threatened them. I wasn't intending to do any harm. I just showed the knife to them hoping one of them would call the police. One did."
Altogether, Toshio has spent half of the last eight years in jail.
I ask him if he likes being in prison, and he points out an additional financial upside - his pension continues to be paid even while he's inside.
"It's not that I like it but I can stay there for free," he says. "And when I get out I have saved some money. So it is not that painful."
Toshio represents a striking trend in Japanese crime. In a remarkably law-abiding society, a rapidly growing proportion of crimes is carried about by over-65s. In 1997 this age group accounted for about one in 20 convictions but 20 years later the figure had grown to more than one in five - a rate that far outstrips the growth of the over-65s as a proportion of the population (though they now make up more than a quarter of the total).
To my mind, there is something wrong with the way we take care of the elderly or those who are significantly poorer than the average when their most attractive option is jail.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:26PM (28 children)
When you coddle criminals and make prisons too comfortable. Increase the chance of rape, starvation and disease and I GUARANTEE this will cease to be a problem. Japan should look to the US' private prison model as a guideline for how to implement this.
(Score: 2, Troll) by bob_super on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:41PM (10 children)
The other solution is to remind them that criminals over 70 are irredeemable, and a social threat, and therefore should automatically get the death penalty.
That would stop the problem right there (except for the tiny minority who needs help with suicide, obviously).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:46PM (9 children)
And then they can starve on the streets of big cities everywhere, which is the only reason they're doing any little thing they can to get a safe place to sleep when they're broke because they can't work and can't afford to support themselves on pensions that never had a chance of keeping pace with the cost of living in japan.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:58PM (8 children)
I'm pretty sure that the answer to that problem is not to keep the judicial and prison systems more attractive than the street.
How about some actual help for the (near-)homeless elderly ?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:11PM (6 children)
Shit, you should see Norwegian "prison" cells. Each one of them is a helluva lot nicer than my apartment, for damn sure. Motherfuckers have X-Boxes and Playstations and shit.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:25PM (5 children)
There's the plan: if you can afford a plane ticket to Norway, alter your physical appearance as much as possible from your "norm", update your passport with the new photo, then go there and burn your passport. Return to your normal appearance, travel far from your entry point, learn some Norwegian, lay low as long as possible then do crime until you're charged.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:32PM (4 children)
Ahh, the ol' refugee strategy.
Suppose the only problem would be keeping the brown paint on my face, once it rolls off and they see my skin is lighter than a paper bag, and that have an education and can speak fluent English and actually be productive to society, I'll be deported.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 31 2019, @11:02PM (3 children)
But, deported to where? America based on your accent? I doubt America is taking indigent refugees from Norway anymore. Canada? UK? Take a vacation in the Caribbean first, learn a bit about an island then claim you came from there.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 01 2019, @05:10PM (2 children)
I'm pretty sure that Orange Roughy said that we need more refugees from Norway (and more Eastern European Models, of course).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 01 2019, @05:57PM (1 child)
Does anyone in government actually listen to Orange Roughy (great name, old fish that live out of touch with the rest of the world) when he's spouting non-sequitors like that?
How many refugees leave Norway every year?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday February 01 2019, @10:42PM
TMYK: Before some marketing guy got involved, Orange Roughy was called Slimehead.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:21PM
What we recently experienced while negotiating with lower cost elder-care homes' in the US was something like this:
How much does this cost?
Well, how much do you have?
Back and forth, but it finally comes down to "Not as much as you're asking."
There's a place over there that can probably help you... Go to place over there, prices are a tiny little bit better.
When the actual total bill really comes in it's about 50% more than we were quoted, first we'll be eroding savings, then when that's gone we'll vaguely threaten your parents with eviction unless you find a way for the family to make up the difference. Then one of the two parents in care died, which cut their monthly income in half, so savings eroded twice as fast as before...
A lot of what seems to go on there is slow billing, slow collections, and if the old people really don't have the money the place absorbs it as a write off, up to a point. They never asked the children to co-sign for anything.
It's a lot like healthcare in general in the U.S.: vague / high billing, and let those who can pay cover for those who default.
Medicare retirement benefits vary hugely depending on what kind of jobs the person worked. I think when you're at top end FICA deductions, your retirement benefit more than pays for the lower end full care (meals + in home medical) eldercare facilities. However, if the best you ever made was about 3x minimum wage, or you spent a lot of years not paying FICA for whatever reasons, your retirement check can be ridiculously small compared to actual cost of care.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:44PM
I say we toss you in first, get that insider info to let us know how to be most inhumane! Then we'll do the exact opposite and create a better society. Back to the dungeons Vlad.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday January 31 2019, @07:46PM (10 children)
I can go along with the sentiment, if not your apparent delight in prison rape, starvation and disease. Let's address the disease first: why do you want to incubate disease in prison, that will threaten the general population? Starvation? Not only is that inhumane, but conducive to disease. Prison rape? Not all of us are into your homoerotic fantasies.
Prison ought to be less pleasant than it is, I'll agree with that. It seems that most prisoners have little to nothing to do, other than sit around watching television, joining and promoting gangs and violence, and generally being useless. At least the younger, healthier prisoners should be make to work for their keep. Probably all the rest, as well. Ongoing education, more spiritual outreach programs, and all the other things that make us human. If you want to see prisons that are true hell holes, maybe you should go break the law in Mexico, or most other Latin American countries, or most of Asia. Then, of course, there is Africa. Go ahead, go see how your ideal prisons are run. Enjoy. Just don't whimper and whine when you find that one of those prison rapists is using a huge horse cock on you. Oh - sorry, your post indicates that you'll enjoy that horse cock.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by urza9814 on Thursday January 31 2019, @08:26PM (5 children)
Like in the US, where native-born non-criminal citizens are locked up in prison and told they have to work, paid $1 per day, until they earn enough money to purchase evidence of their innocence from their own government?
(see page 20: https://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/JailedWithoutJustice.pdf) [amnestyusa.org]
As far as I'm concerned, there is one and only one acceptable purpose for prison -- separating dangerous individuals from society so they cannot cause further harm. That's it. While they're in there, you should be doing everything feasible to rehabilitate them so that they can be released as soon as possible. Anything else is a waste of everyone's time and money on bullshit illogical desires for blood and revenge.
Under such a system, these people probably wouldn't be locked up because they're clearly not dangerous. But then someone would have to think for more than half a second to come up with an actual solution to the problem...so that's unlikely to happen any time soon...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 31 2019, @11:33PM (4 children)
We know a Harvard PhD psychologist who worked for some years in community based drug rehab programs - alternatives to incarceration. Her subjects' recidivism rate was less than 1/3 that of the subjects who went to prison instead, but the county only funded her to the minimum required by some federal program that supplied surplus funds to the county justice department in exchange for running the program.
All the data pointed to long term benefits to the community, lower prison costs, lower drug related crimes, etc. if they would expand the program, but they never even considered expanding it, and often were running afoul of the minimum enrollment requirements.
In that part of the South, at least, Judges want punishment, not a promise of a better future. Punishment they understand, punishment they can control, all this namby-pamby Harvard PhD scientist data crap is a bunch of hooey. Besides, as old as most of the judges around there are, they are locking up the criminals until after the Judges are likely to die of old age.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday February 01 2019, @02:12AM (3 children)
I think what judges really understand, are the contracts they signed to keep a for-profit prison filled to near capacity.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 01 2019, @03:30AM (2 children)
I think it's more insidious than that. They seem to want people who might fall prey to traps like drugs and crime to go ahead and fall, to get them into prison and out of society rather than trying to help them not fall prey in the first place. Sure, for profit prisons are a huge structural machine that wants to be fed, but the judges and many who enter law enforcement around those parts want that machine to grow and suck up all of "those people," even when some of "those people" are friends or family.
The whole "do as I say, not as I do" hypocritical double standard - the privilege of wealth to screw up and not pay the price of incarceration, but instead pay the price of a donation to the city councilmen... above all else, the maintenance of the status quo, and a "return to the good old days" MAGA - that one seems to resonate with the crowd.
Newsflash, folks - the good old days sucked even worse than the present; the people it sucked the worst for died and mostly didn't get to relate their stories about how bad it was for them. Go back to that way of doing things, and you just might find yourselves or your children on the unpleasant side of your chosen reality.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday February 01 2019, @02:12PM (1 child)
It's two sides of the same coin as they say...
Judges *have* been caught literally selling children to prisons (ie, the "kids for cash scandal": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal)...this [wikipedia.org] increases their own personal power by giving them more wealth. At the same time, *anybody* they send to prison increases their own personal power slightly by creating a larger lower class beneath them.
They want the slaves and plantations back, and prison is the socially acceptable way to do that in the modern era...prisoners are cheap labor for the government (and sold cheaply to private corporations), and cheaper goods for everyone...and the kickbacks let them take better advantage of that.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 01 2019, @02:19PM
The hick town I lived in from 2006 to 2013 has judges, police, commissioners, and school board officials who are the children and grandchildren of publicly outed KKK leaders from the early 1900s, when the KKK more or less ran the town openly hostile to catholics, jews, blacks, hispanics, asians, you name it.
In 2008 young punks in that town would go around at night with red paint graffiti-ing homes of asians with racial slurs, probably others too - I just personally worked with a Chinese man who had his house vandalized by them while they were sleeping inside.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday January 31 2019, @08:30PM (1 child)
> At least the younger, healthier prisoners should be make to work for their keep.
Private US prisons do that very well. Using the Constitutional exception for the convicted, pad their bottom lines, while underpaying workers and therefore driving non-slave companies out of business.
"Prevailing Wage" should apply inside prisons. It would also help convicts save up for the release (and/or pay their victims), while not screwing up the job market.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday January 31 2019, @09:41PM
> underpaying workers
They are literally allowed to enslave them. They are overpaid slaves that are being cuddled, not underpaid innocent victims. This is not an oversight, everyone always meant for them to be enslaved.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday January 31 2019, @09:25PM
Don't forget working out. And reading, maybe? Or sending notes to each other via the book cart.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @02:28AM
Good idea in theory. I've yet to see it put into practice in a way that doesn't incentivize incarceration for trivial and/or arbitrary reasons and depress wages for honest people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @08:20PM (1 child)
This is a public service announcement provided for the benefit of SN's large autistic community in accordance with the ADA.
This is a troll. They may be paid or they may want to laugh at you.
But they don't believe what they posted!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @08:55PM
I presume most everyone knows it is a likely troll, but we can never be sure these days. Who keeps modding it up? Probably the troll itself, pretty sad life where someone puts that much effort into being stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:04PM (2 children)
That's a very good point. It's because I don't want to be raped five times a day by prison gangs that I've long since resolved to never be taken alive. I'm not a criminal, but lots of innocent people get accused all the time. If I'm ever accused of anything, then it's time to take as many of the arresting officers screaming down to hell with me as I can.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @04:44AM (1 child)
So instead of doing the honorable thing and just hanging yourself or bashing your head on the wall you prefer to kill the cops? Eeesh, most likely you'll just get an ass kicking before the ass .. umm. ya you know
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @04:12PM
you know that "protect and serve" slogan from the police?
well you can either "protect and serve the regular guy" -> that makes you a peace officer
... OR ...
you can " protect and serve the powers t that be" -> that makes you an enforcement officer
most police officers these days are the latter,
they chose to be that, and that choice is an inherently dangerous one once the powers that be loose popular support... as they increasingly have