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Flipping through recent crime reports, Spa! (Sept 14) noticed a strange thing. A disproportionate number of perpetrators seemed to be in their 30s. So it proved, on closer examination. In the past three months, among 296 crimes serious enough to draw media coverage, 72 suspects, by Spa!’s count, were in their 30s.
Conventional wisdom generally tags the 20s as the most crime-prone decade. But lately, if Spa!’s intuition is correct, the mounting frustrations of maturity have surpassed the energy and recklessness of youth as the forces driving criminal behavior. Coming second behind the 30s are the 40s, with 66 perpetrators. The 20s, with 51, are a distant third.
The 30s are normally a time for settling down, starting a family, rising in one’s career. A moribund economy has blocked those paths for many, however, and rage seethes beneath the surface – often not very far beneath it. Spa! offers some case studies. The names are pseudonyms.
Michio Hirata is a 36-year-old temp worker who hates crowds. Tokyo rush hour is no place for a man like him, but he can scarcely avoid it. “I was standing in a packed train,” he says, “when the guy behind me kept knocking the back of my head with the book he was reading.”
Hirata glared at the offender – to no effect. Patience has its limits. He snapped. “What happened after I punched him the first time, I don’t remember.” Somehow, the pair of them ended up at a police station two stops down the track.
Hirata’s case was helped by the fact that his supposed victim showed himself unmanageably obnoxious. In the end, no charges were filed, but, says Hirata, “I hated being fingerprinted.” How long before he blows again?
Shigeru Ishida, also a temp worker, is 34. It was “unhappiness,” he says, that caused him to turn to crime. “Whether at work or at home, I was completely alone. There was this car, it was parked illegally – for some reason, it irritated me. I wrote graffiti on it with a magic marker.”
That’s exhilarating, when you’re in a certain frame of mind. Having gotten away with it once, he did it again, and again – “almost every day, just stupid, meaningless scribbles.”
It went on for two months, until finally the owner of the car caught him red-handed. “I knew I was doing wrong,” he says, “but I never thought I’d be arrested.” But arrested he was, though charges were dropped when Ishida undertook to pay 600,000 yen to have the car restored.
“Thinking about it now,” he muses, “unhappy or not, I wish I hadn’t done it. With that 600,000 yen, I could have gone traveling, or treated myself to some better distraction.”
If Japan’s economy and social life stagnate any further – and there’s no sign of an upsurge – human behavior, Spa!’s anecdotes suggest, could be in for a nasty evolution.
© Japan Today
17 Comments
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crazygaijin
ha, more like he slapped him in the face and then covered up like a little girl. i have seen a few "fights" in the years that i have been here, but not once have i seen a decent punch thrown.
this is one of the problems with this country; no damn accountability. no wonder why we end up with criminal politicians like Ozawa. the charges were dropped!?!? that is total BS. just b/c he agreed to pay restitution does not mean the charges should have been dropped. what about all the other cars that he admits to vandalizing??? the police/prosecutor in this situation is a glaring idiot.
YongYang
Madforeigner: What a man, aye.
S7ro9kGm3aQ
This is a dreadful article.
bdiego
Well 10 years ago it was guys in their 20s. These guys are now in their 30s. Put two and two together here, you simply had a bad generation.
fds
so what happens to the guy who was parked illegally in the first place. shouldn't he get punished too.
KaptainKichigai
72 out of 296? "suspects"? Thats 24 percent. ummmm thats not a very high percentge. Someone is really reaching for a news story. I dont consider what either of the 2 men did as crimes. Illegally parked cars should be keyed. And someone hitting you in the head on a train repeatedly deserves an eye for an eye.
betterdays
Well said thats very normal in Japan
ThonTaddeo
Join the club.
mrskit
correct me if im wrong,,, but when i first read the title it suggested to me that crime-prone was referring to victim of crime,,,,wouldnt it be better to say criminal acts are increasingly being performed by those in the age 30 bracket
sf2k
what a ridiculous article. Many innuendos and leading self serving "questions". Without the context of a proper survey this is all tripe and in fact scare mongering. How does this get even published? Yikes.
alladin
I think this report has a lot of errors in it. I think there are more people committing crimes in Japan that are in their 20s that go unreported on a daily basis. As of 30s, the crime rate is probably as high as the people in their 20`s. Someone needs to re-examin this report in a more accurate way.
movieguy
@mrskit - Yeah, that's the first thing I thought too, but maybe the writer is just one of those people who believe we're not responsible for our actions. It's totally phrased as though being a criminal is an accident.
sourpuss
movieguy, mrskit
as an adjective, prone means "having a tendency to." a child prone to mischief is the same as a mischief-prone child.
a crime-prone person is the same as a person prone to crime.
check a dictionary.
itshay
what kind of story is this? did I miss the point?
shogun36
@ishtay............
no, you didn't miss the point. there was no point to this article.
it wasn't even an article. it was just a weak observation made by someone who was just quoting other printed material (in fact it might have been made up for all we know.)
you will notice there is no author listed, why would anyone want to show that they worte this?
jason6
You guys are taking a "news article" from Spa! seriously??! HAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHHHAHA
bdiego
jason6 you must be new around here.