This paper describes shoplifting committed by elderly shoplifters and assesses the potential socioeconomic factors and life circumstances involved in shoplifting by the elderly. The research revealed the potential socioeconomic factors and life circumstances influencing this behavior, which are as follows. The financial circumstances of elderly shoplifters were so severe that they relied on their savings and pension exclusively. In addition, a sizable number of elderly shoplifters had no one to talk to and no mentor. Also, elderly shoplifters had few community ties and little dependence on welfare. Although their socioeconomic status and life circumstances were common to most aging citizens, this study proposes that these factors have a greater impact on the criminal elderly than elderly law-abiding citizens. An additional interesting question arose. Why are the rising numbers of elderly shoplifters considered a social problem? Some of the reasons include the severe punishment of offenders, changes in the sales systems of retail outlets, and changes in socioeconomic circumstances such as recent demographic shifts, including the declining birthrate and an increasingly aging population.

Since Agnew revised Merton’s classic strain/anomie theory and revived it as general strain theory (GST), it has been broadly supported as a dominant framework for explaining why some people are pressured into crime. I examined whether the two types of strains described by GST affect the risk of elderly shoplifting, by using a matched pair data set of law-abiding elderly people and elderly people arrested for their first shoplifting offense. One of the strains involves a failure in achieving one’s goals and the other entails losing something valued. In addition, my analysis examined whether factors such as coping skills, socioeconomic status, self control, and the provisionof social support reduced the risk of elderly shoplifting.The main results are as follows:1) Failure in achieving one’s goals increased the risk of elderly shoplifting.2) Losing something valued increased the risk of elderly shoplifting.3) Higher socioeconomic status, self control, and the provision of social support reduced the risk of elderly shoplifting.The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

In 2010, it became mandatory for retailers to report all incidents of shoplifting to the police. However, there are many theories about the most effective methods for managing shoplifting and processing in-store remains. This article surveys the history and culture of shoplifting and clarifies the significance and problems entailed in reporting these incidents by exploring the establishment and development of security guard duties. Throughout the 16th–19th centuries, shoplifting by women from the middle and upper classes frequently occurred in department stores in Europe and America. Security guards were installed to identify and catch suspects. Nevertheless, a general consciousness of gender and social class meant that security guards could only respond gently but firmly to such offenders. In Japan, shoplifting was considered a woman’s crime during the early 20th century, and the department store was identified as the cause. Shoplifting then became a feature of juvenile delinquency after the 2nd World War, and stores began to manage the problem by employing security guards. However, conventional methods for managing shoplifting came under review when it became an elderly person’s crime. This report is based upon a rare research case focusing on elderly people’s shoplifting using store factor theory to understand the influence of dementia on shoplifting. Furthermore, we explored which indicators lead security guards to select an elderly person for observation and catch them. In addition, it is a problem to have possibilities to immobilize a suspect image to elderly persons.

Due to an unprecedented aging society, a new category of elderly criminals has emerged, and new research is required to investigate the causes and identify prevention strategies. There is a marked increase in elderly shoplifting, and a need for organic linking with wider medic al and welfare services to identify the motives and causes. Meanwhile, offenders that are processed by the criminal justice system are rarely offered treatment because most cases are relatively minor. However, the prevention of elderly shoplifting is more important. The preparation of a well-balanced framework that protects the privacy of personal data is required, for example the use of CCTV systems with biometric authentication and information about the troubled elderly, based on public understanding. On the other hand, “murders due to caregiver fatigue” have been attracting people’s attention recently, with the number of cases sentence d to “three years imprisonment suspended for five years” increasing. However, based on the assumption that recidivism among those accused is low, the determination of the suspension period needs rethinking, and services beyond the existing framework of the criminal justice system are needed to provide support to the accused.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify the role of rehabilitation facilities as a place to reconstruct “a story of transformation”. Especially, I focused on the situation where the story was reconstructed in the rehabilitation facilities From November 2014 until April 2016, I conducted a continuous interview survey on 8 girls who are living at X rehabilitation facility. From the result, I found out the following four points. (1) The situation where change of a “story about transformation” is urged is a scene where contradiction arises between the event faced by girls and motivation heightened by correctional education. At this time, it turned out that fluctuations occurred in the positive “story about transformation” reconstructed by correctional education. (2) As an audience in the change of a “story about transformation”, it was revealed that facility staffs play the role of “authentic audience” to appropriately evaluate and support the girls' own power and skills. (3) By encouraging staff to cause “externalization”, they found that it is possible to interpret the problem in relation to the social context. (4) Through experience sharing a new “story about transformation” with the staff, the experience of “downgrading” that occurred in their lives will be positioned in a social context. It can be said that it is a “re-ranking ceremony” that emphasizes the conflict and anguish of the narrator. For juveniles who are still in difficult circumstances, a community is required to operate “re-ranking ceremony” as many times as possible. And the rehabilitation facility could play its role as a story generation device.

This research aims at examining the contextual effects of neighborhood disorder, social cohesion and crime prevention activity on the perceived risk of victimization and fear of crime among neighborhood residents. Upon reviewing several fear of crime analysis models that have considered the signs of disorder, indirect victimization, and risk interpretation in extant studies, the need for longitudinal surveys in multilevel framework has been realized; the current study fills this gap through the analysis of longitudinal surveys in order to dissect causal relationships and to properly separate the effects of individual/contextual factors.Two-wave postal surveys were conducted in 2010 (T1) and 2012 (T2) in 39 census tracts in a suburban city of Metropolitan Tokyo (n=585). Two outcome variables, perceived risk of victimization and fear of crime at T2, were regressed on direct/indirect victimization between T1 and T2 as well as individual and contextual predictors at T1. Hierarchical linear models revealed tract-level interactions that social cohesion alleviated the strength of contextual-relationships between disorder and perceived risk, which was consistent with the signs of disorder model. Tract-level interactions were also found where crime prevention activity such as patrol could reduce residents’ perceived risk and fear in a cohesive neighborhood. Meanwhile, cross-level interactions were found where tract-level disorder weakened the strength of individual-level association between perceived community crime prevention activity and perceived risk of crime. Finally, statistically significant temporal lag effects of indirect victimization on the perceived risk of crime and the effect of perceived risk on crime were also found, which supported both the indirect victimization and risk interpretation models. Policy implications and limitations of the current study were discussed.

Empirical studies on sex offenders’ recidivism have been conducted abroad using not only age at release, but also age at first offense. Using survival analyses, this study further clarified some factors affecting ex-inmates’ sexual recidivism. Consistent with studies abroad, the number of violent and sexual arrest histories increased risk of sexual recidivism. Furthermore, after taking age at first offense and the number of violent and sexual arrest histories into account, ex-inmates who were released in their 20s and 30s were at a higher risk of sexual recidivism. On the other hand, subgroup analyses based on the age at release indicated that ex-inmates with the onset of violent and sexual offenses in the second decade were at a higher risk of sexual recidivism in cases where they were released in their 20s and 30s. These findings’ implications and future research directions are discussed in this study.

This study devises a method for surveying and recording potential precursors of serious childhood criminal victimization such as kidnapping in a systematic manner and develops tools that implement this survey methodology. Based on the survey toolkits called “Karte of Dangerous Incident” combined with a map of the location of the incident, we introduced a set of QR codes into these toolkits so that they could be recognized automatically using document scanners. In addition, we constructed a website that enables the users to prepare and print these survey toolkits for themselves, and carried out a preliminary survey at an elementary school using these toolkits. The results indicated that these toolkits would provide the school teachers with effective and sustainable ways of surveying potential precursors of childhood criminal victimization. The results also indicated that the future tasks include additional improvements of our survey toolkits and the construction of social system that enables the full-scale implementation of these toolkits.