In this study, we compared victims and detectors of grandparent scam, focusing on the following risk factors for victims of special fraud: recognition of fraud tactics, social isolation, loneliness, and general trust. Sixty five victims of grandparent scam and seventy one detectors were analyzed. The results of logistic regression analysis suggested that lack of knowledge of the tactics of the grandparent scam and the legal fee scam may increase the probability of becoming a victim. It was also confirmed that the probability of victimization increased the less people one went to events and meetings with in one’s residential area and the higher one’s sense of loneliness, indicating the influence of not only social isolation indicators but also subjective indicators such as loneliness. The results also indicated the influence of subjective indicators such as loneliness as well as objective social isolation indicators such as the number of people who go to events and meetings together in the residential area. Furthermore, even in Japan, where general trust is lower than in the U.S. and China, general trust in others was found to increase the likelihood of becoming a victim of special fraud.

The purpose of this study was to examine, using text mining, the distress experienced by those who felt urami toward their partner after a relationship breakup and engaged in stalking-related behaviors. The subjects were 547 persons aged 20–49 years who had experienced a breakup and rejection by their dating partner or spouse, and who had felt urami toward them. The history of their rejection experiences, the distress they felt at the time, and the stalking-related behaviors they engaged in toward their partners were surveyed and analyzed using text mining. The results showed that the violent stalking-related behaviors were associated with the breakdown of the dating relationship that was supposed to be marriage and divorce after the rejection experience, which were caused by the partner’s cheating and ignore. Furthermore, it was shown that recalling pleasant times spent with the partner tended to lead to distress in those who had engaged in violent behavior. Finally, the limitations of this study and prospects for future research were discussed.

Enhanced protocols were proposed for improving detection rate of the response time-based concealed information test (RT-CIT), however it is unclear whether or not it is effective when the stimuli are Japanese words. This study investigated its effectiveness by two experiments: Self-related item was used for probe in experiment 1, and mock-crime related item was used for probe in experiment 2. In both experiments, participants were asked to push [I] button for the target and three fillers (e.g. FAMILIER, KNOWN) and [E] button for the probe, irrelevant, and other six fillers (e.g. UNFAMILIER, UNKNOWN). Only in experiment 2, standard RT-CIT and enhanced RT-CIT were both conducted and compared their results. As results, RTs were significantly delayed for probe compared to those for irrelevant in enhanced RT-CIT in both experiments, but not different in standard RT-CIT in experiment 2. Based on the results of both experiments, the effectiveness of the enhanced RT-CIT using Japanese word stimuli was discussed.

Few studies explored the impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) on inmates of juvenile classification home (JCH) and their delinquency. In this study, we surveyed how the inmates in JCH perceived their GEJE experience by questionnaire, and analyzed which factors affected their delinquency after GEJE by using survival analysis.

As a result, it was observed that while inmates in the JCH recognized the disaster experience as a frightening and painful experience, they also were motivated to help society recover from the disaster. Another findings showed that those who were socially maladjusted before the earthquake, those who experienced the death and/or separation of family, and those who lost their places at school or work had a shorter time to delinquency after the GEJE. These findings suggest that in order to prevent post-disaster delinquency, it is important to provide support to encourage adaptation to school and workplace, as well as to obtain a place where they belong.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the sexual orientation of sexual crime victims on the victim blaming from a third party. Two vignettes of male rapes were presented, and 89 university students answered the degree of victim blaming. Two vignettes were prepared by manipulating the sexual orientation of the boy victim, although those vignettes had the same story regarding the victim experience. As a result of the ANOVA, male participants blamed victims more strongly in both vignettes, and both male and female participants blamed a homosexual victim more. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis using the victim blaming scores as the objective variable under the homosexual condition showed the stronger the homosexual acceptance, the weaker the blaming, and the higher the knowledge about sexual minorities, the lower the blaming. There was no relationship with the sex of the participants. As a consideration, if the victim is homosexual, there is a possibility of sense of discrimination, and it would be suppressed by gaining knowledge about sexual minorities and increasing acceptance of homosexuals.

The aim of this study was to examine a trend of Japanese criminal psychology research themes. The archive of all research titles of proceedings in the Japanese Journal of Criminal Psychology special number (annual conference) from 1963 to 2022 were used in the current investigation. The 4,271 research titles over the past 60 years were analyzed using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). Topic model with LDA detected that there were 22 themes for Japanese criminal psychology and hierarchical cluster analysis classified both three clusters and seven topics. Time-series analysis revealed that each themes had own transition. Decreasing trend were involved in such themes as intelligence tests, correctional treatment, and cluster I, while increasing pattern were shown in such topics as sexual offence, risk assessment, effectiveness verification, offender profiling and cluster II. Juvenile classification home and cluster III were the invariant themes. Criminal psychological studies in Japan were discussed and the author suggests the future direction for Japanese criminal psychology research.