NPR ran a fascinating report on spiking non-violent crime committed by the elderly in Japan.
Statistics have shown a 5-fold increase in crime among older folks.
They interview journalist Michael Zielenziger – the author of Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation – about the phenomena.
Zielenziger talks about the long-term economic collapse, lack of governmental support, and poor social infrastructure.
He also talks about a 79 year old woman who stabbed a young woman in a Tokyo shopping district and was quoted saying, “I had no place to stay and wanted the police to take care of me.”
I found a little bit online the stabbing here.
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Zielenziger was the Tokyo-based bureau chief for Knight Ridder Newspapers for seven years.
Here is a synopsis on the book from his web site:
The world’s second wealthiest country, Japan once seemed poised to overtake America. But its failure to recover from the economic collapse of the early 1990s was unprecedented, and today it confronts an array of disturbing social trends. Japan has the highest suicide rate and lowest birthrate of all industrialized countries and a rising incidence of untreated cases of depression. Even more troubling are the more than one million young men who shut themselves in their rooms “hikikomori”, withdrawing from society, and the growing numbers of “parasite singles,” the name given to single women who refuse to leave home, marry, or bear children.
Never a dull moment in Columbia Heights (I have a been to a house party 500 ft from this house):
An armed robbery suspect made off with the money but left one of his thumbs behind following a violent armed robbery and double shooting at an alleged Columbia Heights bordello.
Police used the bloody appendage to track down the nine-fingered bandit suspected of robbing what authorities say is a Hispanic brothel and gambling house in Northwest Washington earlier this month.
Authorities said the suspect, Bryan Perez, 22, and his partner were able to escape from the row house with hundreds of dollars in cash. But, according to charging documents, Perez’s right thumb was left behind on the living room floor, hacked off during a struggle with one of the victims.
“It fits like a puzzle piece,” Dr. Erin Smith told police, according to the arrest affidavit. Perez was then taken to the Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore where his thumb was reattached.
…
One of the victims, Francisco Luna, grabbed the gunman and the gun went off, shooting Luna in the stomach. Perez then drew out a silver machete and attacked Luna with it, police said. In the struggle, Luna took control of the machete and cut Perez’s thumb off.
Half-naked young women, some in their teens, poured from the house, surprising next door neighbors, who called police.
(via Jeunee)
Woman arrested for killing virtual husband:
A Japanese piano teacher has been arrested for the murder of her virtual husband after an abrupt but messy online divorce.
The 43-year-old from Kyushu province in southern Japan faces a maximum sentence of five years in jail if she is found guilty of killing off her digital partner.
The spurned make-believe wife was so angry at being jilted that she logged into the game using her partner’s password and destroyed the character that he had spent a year creating.
