2011 Volume 36 Pages 76-106
The primary purpose of this paper is to study the effects of socio-demographic changes in population in Japan, that is, the so-called aging society with a declining birthrate, on crime and the criminal justice system. The author discusses various problems in the Japanese criminal justice system relating to the above changes. Finally, the author advances solutions and proposed modifications to Japan's criminal justice system to solve the problems. First of all, the number of crimes in Japan has been declining in general due to the aging population with a declining birthrate. Property crime and violent crime are both normally committed by young people. The fewer young people in society, the fewer crimes. On the other hand, by looking at changes in the crime rates per capita for different age groups, the author has identified a very fundamental change that took place around the mid-1990s. Normally crime rates drop with age, especially after 30 years of age. After the mid-1990s, on the contrary, crime rates remained stable with age after 30 years old in Japan. People have not stopped committing crimes after 30 years of age in Japan. As a root cause of crime, there is usually some hardship of life such as economic difficulties or social isolation. An aging society with a declining birthrate has caused a severe recession in the Japanese economy. The fewer young people in the society, the fewer goods are sold. Retired people are not likely to buy cars and business attire. The low level of consumption is cooling down the Japanese economy, which has struck hard at the lives of middle aged and older people. More and more elderly people have either committed suicide or engaged in crime and have been arrested by the police. The Japanese criminal justice system has operated based on the theory of retributive justice. While judges and prosecutors sometimes show leniency to criminals, they basically consider that criminals should be punished and pay for their crimes. They are not interested in rehabilitation of the offenders and do not take this into account in their decision-making. The rule of aggravated punishment for a second conviction is automatically applied even to repeated petty shoplifting by elderly people. Therefore, the number of elderly prisoners is increasing drastically in Japan mainly for very petty offenses. In order to solve the problem and reform the criminal justice to meet the challenges of an aging society with declining birthrate, the author argues that the criminal justice system in Japan should turn from retributive justice to problem-solving justice, with an emphasis on rehabilitating offenders. The author proposes how the criminal justice system in Japan should be reformed by comparing it with the Italian criminal justice system.
