Elderly people in Japan are getting arrested on purpose because they want to go to prison
Some senior citizens in Japan are intentionally committing petty crimes because they view life in jail as better than life outside
By Mark Abadi
Japan has the world’s oldest population, with more than a quarter of its citizens aged 65 or older.
The ageing population has already put a strain on Japan’s financial system and retail industry. But in recent years, another unexpected trend has been unfolding: In record numbers, elderly people in Japan are committing petty crimes so they can spend the rest of their days in prison.
According to Bloomberg, complaints and arrests involving older citizens are outpacing those of any other demographic in Japan, and the elderly crime rate has quadrupled over the past couple of decades.
In prisons, one out of every five inmates is a senior citizen. And in many cases — nine out of 10, for senior women — the crime that lands them in jail is petty shoplifting.
The unusual phenomenon stems from the difficulties of caring for the country’s elderly population. The number of Japanese seniors living alone increased by 600 per cent between 1985 and 2015, Bloomberg reported. Half of the seniors caught shoplifting reported living alone, the government discovered last year, and 40 per cent of them said they either don’t have family or rarely speak to them.
For these seniors, a life in jail is better than the alternative.