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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: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:46PM (13 children)
Public perception built around Jack Nicholson's performance in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" not withstanding, government services for the mentally ill and infirm have been steadily and rapidly declining over the last several decades - leaving four basic options for these people:
1. Impose upon family/friends to keep them. Not always an option, and not at all optimal calling upon random otherwise productive members of the community to become impromptu full-time mental healthcare workers.
2. Circulate them through the court/jail systems. Again, terribly inefficient to clog the courts with these cases, and jail time rarely brings about positive change in their futures - leading to more need for services.
3. Street life. In many ways more challenging than holding down a job and paying rent, often cycles with option 2.
4. Hurry up and die, already, won't you? The only logical outcome of government cutbacks in services for those who can't participate in mainstream society without support.
I suppose if you're of pension (i.e. unemployable) age and haven't saved enough money to afford to live, that puts you in the same boat as younger people who can't stay employed for whatever reason.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:57PM (1 child)
The problem is fake inflation numbers, making the pensions worth a third of what they were supposed to be worth.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 31 2019, @08:39PM
CPI definitely didn't keep up with the cost of housing, that's for sure - and what do pensioners need?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Thursday January 31 2019, @08:40PM (3 children)
I agree that services have eroded terribly, but FWIW public perception of the institutions (which also housed physically & developmentally disabled people of all types) was also based on an avalanche of lawsuits and undercover exposé journalistic coverage of what was really going on inside them. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest itself was based on Ken Kesey's experiences working the grave shift as an orderly at a mental institutions, not made up.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:08PM (2 children)
I totally agree, however... just because some of the institutions were "doing it wrong" is no reason to shut them all down. Also, strangling funding isn't how you get good employees into the places. If employees aren't there for the pay, they're looking for other perks...
Replace "mentally/physically handicapped" with "elderly" and all the same things apply, except that they haven't shut down the high-cost elder care homes, but abuse is just as prevalent and horrifying as it was in mental institutions.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:14PM (1 child)
Either way, you have pretty damn good excuses for sitting on the steps of the public square and orating to the passers-by, "Now let me tell you about the Jews..."
Retards and old people can also get away with slapping strangers' butts in public. Only Italians can get away with that one without being senile or retarded, and with their recent actions towards migrants, I now understand why Thomas Harris fetishizes them.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 31 2019, @10:30PM
I worked on Miami Beach for about 10 years, there were a couple of apartments on our work parking lot and in one of them was a little old lady at least 85 years old... She made her way to the grocery store and back almost every day, as did we to buy lunch sandwiches from the deli.
One day, little old lady starts acting Touretty - I think it was just something she did to get attention, she didn't seem triggered quite the same way as the actual Tourettes people I've met, but... one of her go-to curse words was "Pussy Galore" - I guess she watched Goldfinger (opening scenes shot down the street) too many times.
Her "Tourettes" went into remission, I never saw a sign that she got taken away or evaluated for it, maybe she did...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday February 01 2019, @01:41AM (6 children)
Well, we could just make it a law you have to be productive, and if you aren't we ship you off to wonderful New Eden where you have a second chance at productivity......as fertilizer.
Or, alternatively, go old school with green crackers....
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 01 2019, @03:20AM (5 children)
So, this really needs to be brought into the conversations about social programs more often - because it's the message behind the "budget cuts:" we really don't care if you live or die, and, in-fact, since you're not doing anything for us at the moment, why don't you go ahead and die? It would make our lives so much simpler if you were just gone.
I can get behind Hospice services, if you're elderly, too infirm to stand up for yourself and say: "no, I don't want those painkillers, get the hell out of my house" and your family is o.k. with it, then, sure - it's a kindness to be more comfortable and peaceful in your last few days, instead of suffering in pain and anxiety for much longer. Go ahead, crush up that morphine atavan cocktail and syringe it to the back of the mouth to get past the reflexes to spit it out. It really is better for all involved. On the other hand, if a person can stand up on their own, can tell you "no, I don't want that" then they deserve the respect to not be fed a cocktail of drugs that, in addition to relieving pain and reducing anxiety, also reduce respiratory function and hasten death.
Now, when we're talking about those people who haven't been signed off by a physician as having less than 2 weeks to live, who have not signed DNR orders for themselves... it really is cheaper to take care of their basic animal needs (food, shelter, basic medical) than it is to let them get into crisis after crisis that they cannot afford. If they're healthy and in crisis, it is a strong incentive to criminal behavior, and when that happens it's all kinds of destructive and expensive for everybody involved.
Then the whole conversation can turn to "right to reproduce" - with world population well past 7B and virtually guaranteed to exceed 10B soon, I can only think of one thing for that: reproduction, an inalienable right and even moral duty when human population was 500M, needs to become less of a right and more of a privilege. How do we go about that? It's going to be a mess, but it's a mess that the whole world should have actively engaged with even before China toyed with a "one child" policy that still failed to stop their population growth.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday February 01 2019, @04:13AM (4 children)
Uh, wow, didn't expect such an in-depth analysis of a joke post referencing The Humanity Bureau and Soylent Green.
I shall mod you interesting.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 01 2019, @02:15PM (3 children)
I've got 2 kids who are going to be dependent (in differing degrees) on the social support systems when we die - all else being equal, they're going to have 40 years or so where we can't directly support them, and 30 years or so when we're just dead... There's no way in hell (barring a large lottery win) that I will ever be able to leave a trust with enough funding in it to provide for their care for 30 years, and so far there's not any parallel path family (cousins, etc.) who are going to do anything for them when we're gone.
We deal with school administrators, policies, etc. that basically try to shove them in a corner and ignore them (taking a bad situation and making it worse) until they age out of the school system (at 21/22) and either live with us, or ultimately in jail if we won't keep them - and the older (now 17) just might have to navigate that system sooner than later on his own if he continues to physically challenge us - we're just two people, and not physically able to provide 24-7-365 support for him - not to mention handling the more challenging one while trying to help his younger brother grow to a state where he might be independent in the future.
Oh, as for our own retirement - my wife will never retire, her full time job now and forever is the kids, and I'm trying to plan the next 20 years or so such that I can continue earning good income through my early 70s. With only 10-20 years of post retirement to fund, I may actually be able to save enough to keep us out of social services until we're physically unable to handle life and the kids.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday February 01 2019, @05:54PM (2 children)
Ah yes, as for me, my wife is disabled and has been for 15 years, I will likely die at work.
An uncovered emergency surgery for me a few years ago means I'm still several years from paid off on it. So that pretty well wiped out my savings. Like you I hope to be able to save enough to retire for a few years before the ol' ticker winds down. Maybe another 15 and semi-retire at 75 if I make it.
Fortunately all my kids are out of the house.
Of my 3 children 1 died at 26 of a drug overdose, 1 was ADD and the 3rd was thankfully without any major problems. We had run-ins with the school administrators ourselves for similar reasons, the policy seemed to be dope 'em up stick 'em in the corner and pass 'em without teaching them anything. I never had quite the problems you have currently, but enough of a taste to know how fucked up the system is.
Of 5 grandchildren, 1 is severely Autistic with body morphology problems, 1 is ADD and a 3rd has Aspergers. So my children are closer to your situation than I ever was.
Yeah, ain't what I envisioned either.
I wish you the very best, and may we both win the lottery...(:
(sorry if that rambled a bit, tough day at work, my boss is out for 10 months for a shoulder surgery so the C level bowl tech and I (B level tech but computer hardware nerd that my boss just can't do) are trying to fill our roles and I'm trying to fill in for the A tech.
*note* Bowl techs are pinsetter mechanics at a bowling center, we have to be mechanics, electricians and computer hardware techs and fabricators with a smattering of HVAC all rolled into one. True 'jack of all trades.' Without us, your favorite bowling center would be closed in about a week.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 02 2019, @02:02AM (1 child)
I'm pretty convinced that we were expelled from one school (2nd grade) specifically because we would not dope our kids up, and denied entry to several others for the same. Tried Rispordal on the older one when he turned 15, made him worse - now we're using Marinol "as needed" maybe 3 doses a month, it de-escalates him when you can see a problem coming, and things don't get bad if you miss a dose, because we're not giving it on a continuous basis.
As for "not teaching them anything" - yeah, the older one who demonstrated some 3 digit addition back in 2nd grade, but basically hasn't done more than counting since then, barely verbal, all but illegible handwriting... yeah, he's getting a 3.8 GPA in the standard high school courses like Pre-Algebra, History, English, etc. He got As in art without ever entering the art classroom and never doing any artwork.
My sympathies to you and your family. My wife's mother passed away recently and we discovered a flock of cousins who she never spoke with/about - 4/5 of their families have kids with autism, mostly in their 20s and 30s now. We thought it came down our male family lines, but her mother's family is much more full of it than her father's, and my mother's side is hard to judge since we're the only ones to have children down her side since my younger brother was born in the early 70s.
I've done a lot of work with smaller companies, so when you say "C level" I immediately think: CEO, CFO, CIO....
My first job saw me rise to VP of R&D (in a company of 6 employees, total) and still do programming work in C++. Then after 12 years with that place, it finally cratered financially and I was sitting in a park, unemployed, with my wife 6 months pregnant and a toddler - met another couple with a toddler, he just had a 2 year college degree and works for Johnson Controls doing PLC setups. Maybe I was paid better when I had work, but he had the more stable job, and didn't waste an additional 4+ years getting a MS degree. I finally "got bought" along with one of the small companies I was working for and the big company gave me a nice raise, better benefits, bonus, etc. so I've been hanging with them for 5+ years now, and plan to ride this bus as long as I can.
Best of luck to you and your kids especially. No matter where you are, it can always be worse. If "significant autism" is a 1% of the population incidence, our oldest is in the top 1% of that 1% for most severely challenging/impaired that we've met; but a friend of ours has a son just about his age who's even worse + has seizures - they're about 10 years younger than us, but you can tell it's taking a huge toll on them. And, then, neither of our families is trying to handle this as a single parent, but we know several that are - some by divorce, some by absence/neglect, and one by early death of a parent...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Saturday February 02 2019, @01:58PM
The Autistic granddaughter with the body morphology problems has improved by leaps and bounds in a new school where she's more than the teachers 'problem child.' The change is so stunning as the new school actually works with her!
I in turn wish you the best as well and may we both see at least a few years of actual retirement!
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.