77-year-old man arrested for stealing money from shrine donation box

You know things are getting worse when nearly 80-year olds are resorting to petty street crime.

You really have to stoop so low to even begin considering stealing from places of worship. But then again, we're in for some hard times

Being homeless and having no job and then being arrested is not the solution to this guy’s problem...

is it worth stealing 1.500 yen for being arrested?? To me ,NO

BETTER TO BE HUNG FOR A WOLF THAN A SHEEP!

NOT FOR 1.500 YEN

Another desperate victim of the failed pension system.

Might of done this on purpose to just to get caught and get sent to jail, (free meals and a roof)

There is a guy near my business in town who does this every morning. I see him when walking my dog. His clothes are bad and his 1LK is opposite so I know his lifestyle. He looks poor and miserable. His garbage bin consists of pot noodle, coffee and sports newspapers. No alcohol waste.

i think he probably lives on ¥1000 a day from the local shrines. Local shrine nearby charges ¥1800 tax free for day parking.

i feel sorry for the old geezer.

I'm close with the family who runs the shrine adjacent to our house. One night, I noticed a man trying to break into the tithing box, so I went to notify her, and she said, "There's seldom any money in the box, but the box itself is valuable."

How did he get all the way to Yokohama from Okinawa if he had no money?

Will the religious shrine management have mercy and forgive this man like the Bishop of Digne forgave Jean Valjean for stealing the candlesticks in Le Miserables? I hope so.

I can see where he's coming from, when you don't have a single penny or yen to your name 1500 Yen is a fortune! its easy for us to sit at our computers criticising his actions, but were the ones not on skid row! it might be more profitable to sit near the entrance to the shrine with a cardboard sign saying homeless donations please.

Alternatively, he could have approached the shrine custodial owner to ask for a job; he could guard the donation box!

I feel pity for the old fella, 77 and homeless. If some keen journalist is out their I hope they scoop up his story and make a book and a movie out of his life. and showcase the issues that caused him to arrive at this condition in life.

The shrine have no heart. the homeless would certainly go to prison to eat and sleep. his strategy was good!

The shrines and temples in this country are only about money and contribute almost

nothing to society like helping the poor like we see with the western religions,

if the guy hadn't helped himself, the money would have ended up with some Mama in a high scaled

Snack bar or the living allowance of some mistress that the obosan was seeing 

Religious institutions are exempt from paying taxes has they are not business but shrine

openly use their grounds as parking lots and make lots of money, the tax office knows but 

they just turn a blind eye.

Just for future reference, when pilfering petty sums from a major corporation such as a temple, make the rounds of all the temples so you don't raise suspicion.

77, homeless, hungry, and the temple gets all that cash tax free; maybe they can surrender a few coins?

Time for food banks to be set up, at least the homeless would have one less thing to worry about

Classic case of police having too much time on their hands for trivial things and way less time for the real stuff.

Even if their stealth operation was necessary, a stern warning and a "we are watching you" would suffice.

And even more appropriate would be considering the mans circumstances and seeing what could be done to enable him to live out his life with meaning, care and safety.

Arresting him serves no-ones purpose except making the police records fatter.

If he really wanted to enter jail then I assume he would have acted out crimes in a more noticeable way for early capture.

So society will donate to a box but not to a man? Strange.

Look, all the coins were thrown away, unwanted by their former owners.