'Safe haven' Japan in grip of crime wave

A 17-year-old boy stabs a pensioner to death in her home because he wants to know "how it feels to kill". In a posh business district in Tokyo, a gangland gun battle leaves two dead and five injured. Car thefts shoot up 78 per cent in a single year.

A 17-year-old boy stabs a pensioner to death in her home because he wants to know "how it feels to kill". In a posh business district in Tokyo, a gangland gun battle leaves two dead and five injured. Car thefts shoot up 78 per cent in a single year.

There is no denying it: Japan's image as a safe haven from crime has taken a battering. Now the National Police Agency has confirmed what most people here already guessed. The country is experiencing its worst crime wave since the Second Word War.

Crimes recorded during the first six months of 2000 topped one million for the first time during a half-year period, with murders by juveniles almost doubling, the agency said. Serious incidents involving guns are up 26.1 per cent, while burglaries and robberies are up 23.8 per cent and 15 per cent.

These figures are a cause for concern in a country that prides itself on being the safest of all the major industrialised nations. According to the Ministry of Justice, crime rates in Japan are still three times lower than in the United States.

Nevertheless, the word on the street is that law enforcement is in crisis.

While Japanese police still boast some of the highest arrest rates in the world, a slew of police scandals and bunglings over recent months has eroded public faith. NPA statistics seem to bear out the doubters. So far in 2000, arrests for serious crimes have dropped 20.1 per cent from the same period last year.

The presiding judge in a recent trial of five former senior officers of the Kanagawa prefectural police force, who were charged with covering up an inter-office drug-abuse scandal, summed up the general feeling. Corruption in police ranks has "seriously damaged public confidence in the integrity of the police force and threatened the nation's legal foundation".

This is just one of a string of scandals concerning the Kanagawa force, whose disgrace has demoralised police throughout the country. Scandals concerning other forces surface regularly. Add to that a spate of gruesome murders and high-profile incidents of underworld violence, and it is little wonder the public is feeling jittery about crime. Last Monday, a gun and knife battle that broke out mid-afternoon in Tokyo's Kojimachi business district between members of an ultra-rightist group and Yakuza gangsters confirmed worst fears. Both sides had links with the Sumiyoshi crime syndicate, police said. Of 413 guns seized between January and June, 242 belonged to Yakuza members. While most countries would kill for statistics like that, in Japan, alarm bells are ringing.

The disturbing trends don't stop there. Police sources say that since the enacting of the 1992 Antigang Law, organised crime groups have found it harder to rely on traditional moneymaking schemes: gambling, prostitution, protection rackets. As a result, mobsters have been taking over rightist political organisations as fronts for illegal activities. At the same time, rank-and-file gangsters are said to be turning to petty crime to pay off bosses.

But the real worry is juvenile crime. So far this year, minors committed 53 murders - almost twice the number in the same period last year. Muggings by youth gangs are also up, and violence in schools has reached record levels, with cases of extreme bullying and extortion of classmates making headlines almost weekly.

The sheer brutality of some of the crimes has ignited debate about Japan's rigid education system and the leniency of the country's juvenile laws.

The soul-searching began in 1997, when a 14-year-old boy murdered two primary-school pupils. He cut off the head of one of his victims and placed it by the front gate of his school.

In September last year, a group of teenagers allegedly abducted one of their peers, confining and torturing him for three months before finally strangling him. Despite persistent pleas from the youth's parents, local police refused to investigate his disappearance, sparking public outcry. In May this year, a 17-year-old boy allegedly hijacked a bus and stabbed a 68-year-old passenger to death. Also in May, another 17-year-old boy allegedly murdered a 65-year-old woman in her home with a knife. "I killed because I was bored," he told investigators.

According to psychiatrist Satoru Saito, such cases reflect a fundamental breakdown of family and social values.

"Japan is only now starting to face up to the dark side of the family," he said.

Still, not everyone is getting worked up about Japan's unprecedented crime wave.

"I can still walk around Kabukicho at night without worrying about someone pulling a knife on me," said Yoko Sakai, 32, a Tokyo office worker. Kabukicho is the capital's notorious red-light district, which Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara described as so dangerous "even the Yakuza don't dare go in". But Sakai says: "Compared to other countries, Japan still feels completely safe."