tsurara

While I agree that Japan isnt safe... your previous argument doesnt sound like an entirely valid conclusion. It doesnt gel with any of the education I recieved on Japan, the research Ive done or my experiences here.

While the crime rate is indeed speculated to be MUCH higher than reported in certain areas, especially the realm of sexual crimes, the murder rate is rather low... even taking population density into account. Muder-suicide is also a fairly Western idea... Ive not heard of any murder-suicides recently, and nearly all violent crimes make the headlines in one form or another. If murder-suicide were indeed so common, there would be very little need for the death penalty...

Lack of access to firearms is a contributing factor in the lack of -successful- murders... but random acts of violence like slashing are on the rise as is violent youth crime.

Suicide is still a much larger problem than murder... but the only criminals who regularly seem to choose to take their own lives are involved in politics or business and are outed for corruption. Its not uncommon at all for a public figure or CEO to toss himself out of a window upon conviction of a coorporate crime.

Murders per year per 100,000 people -
Japan - 1.1
Germany - 3.9
England - 1.03
USA - 8.7

population in the UK is 60.6 million
population in Japan is 127 million

It then follows that there are more murders per year in Japan than the United Kingdom... more than twice as many... but its still in the lower range of nations in the realm of murder.

murder-suicide rates are not currently recorded by any census/statistics bureaus so its difficult to find anything more on the subject than hearsay. A search yeilds no papers or studies done on murder-suicide in Japan... only a handful of articles detailing cases of murder-suicide. Still, gut feeling... and 3 years of watching the news every morning would imply the rate is not particularly high.

Perhaps youre mistaking statistics for group suicide or family suicide as murder-suicide?

Crime in Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Japan Reference - Society - Crime in Japan : analysis per nationality

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jazzy9513

i dont really no if japan is safe or not but from what i hear its not safe at all

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Arrianna

I am not surprised. I had to find a study by someone who had done research on multiple countries by type of crime and population density. Japan was just one the countries covered nor am I sure just what country the researchers were from in any of the studies I looked at. It has been two years so chances are the numbers I read have changed from what I remember. It essentially came down to adding in the murder suicides to the homicide rate and ending up being the same. Just remember population density. If you have been living in a more rural area you might not have seen as much of it and from what the study said most of the homicides were actually reported officially as group suicides and family suicides even when the evidence was that it was a homicide/suicide. It's that "face" I mentioned. What the police report and what happened are often not the same thing in this case.

As for the link suggesting crimes are decreasing in Japan an article written in the Japan Times about issues with the police force being corrupt, not reporting crime, and being unprepared for increased crime would indicate otherwise. That one I read within the year.

I know that it isn't what you hear, that is my point. What you hear and what is reported isn't the reality and we can thank the Japanese cultural attitude of public "appearance" and "shame" for it. Yes there is shame if you are caught committing crimes but there is also shame for the police that have these things happen in their jurisdiction so they have an incentive to pretend it didn't happen. It reminds me of when I was in high school and our principle cracked down on drug use and didn't care who knew it so as a result it got into the papers. In response the principle of the next high school over released a statement that they, unlike my school, had no problems with drugs and it was unnecessary for them to take any such steps. We all laughed our heads off because most of our druggie friends would go over to the neighboring school to buy their drugs from the dealers. What their principle reported was simply not reality and saying otherwise didn't make it true.

As I said before I was surprised to find that the crime and homicide rate was as high in Japan as it actually is since I assumed it would be less based on all the same reporting you are talking about as well. When I did the research tied to population density I found out otherwise. Sorry I can't give you the links but it has been so long I wouldn't even know where to start so believe it or not, your choice.

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Hassun

During my stays in Japan I could walk down the darkest alleys in the middle of the night in cities like Tokyo, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Matsuyama, Nagasaki, Kurashiki and other places. Something I wouldn't do in many large European cities.

You must never let fear get to you Tsurara.

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tsurara

I'm a little flustered that someone can read a few isolated net studies and call it "research" when two degrees in Japanese Sociology and History apparently count for bupkis since I'm obviously being lied to :P

All due respect but... while I may have been fed a sanitized version of Japan from my short stay at a Japanese university, I have found my American education to be both brutally honest and based almost entirely on a proliferation of well-documented evidence... a lot of which I was required to read in order to graduate. Four years of experience living in the nation, fluency in the language and extensive travel hasn't opened any gigantic holes in the information I was given.

:/

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atomik_sprout

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Arrianna

, they weren't net studies but studies on crime that were also published on the net. It is hard to find research on crime linked to population density since most research is based on percentage of total population. It took me a long time to gather all the facts and I read more studies (including government studies) then I would care to think about. I should have kept the studies but I didn't, my bad. As I said believe it or not, your choice, though I am amused that when I back up your belief that Japan isn't as safe as you are told all of a sudden I am the one who is wrong.

Either way I have to agree with Hussan, "You must never let fear get to you Tsurara." Even if the crime rates are comparable the types of crimes are different and I don't think you should live in fear either. The chances of anything happening to you is small as long as you are smart and I get the impression you are very smart.

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tsurara

Most suicides in Japan are middle-aged to elderly men affected by the collapse of the bubble economy or company downsizing. A great number are among the unemployed homeless, those driven into debt by shady lending agencies, or those who have failed to live up to society's expectations for them.

Teenage sucide is relatively rare.

If Hell existed and actually DID have six inches of snow a year: sure.

Japan is safer than the US... in terms of frequency, mortality, etc.
Hassun is right that you can wander around after dark in a big city and will rarely run into any sort of trouble at all...

The question is: does that make Japan a safe country?

Is our ability to walk around after dark a symptom of the reassurance that Japan is safe and the resulting lack of fear... or is it based on the actual reality that nothing is likely to ever happen to you?

As for not letting the fear get to me: I went to a movie that got out at 11pm, biked to the net cafe in the dark and slept in a public cubicle with no door. I think I'm doing okay... doesn't mean I'm not still annoyed that the rumor that "there is no crime in Japan" is still so common. When something violent happens, I'm still shocked... and the seemingly brutal and random nature of violent crimes in Japan unsettles me.

There's a difference between confidence and stupidity.

There IS a slasher running around my city right now... and a known murderer of foreign women floating around somewhere in a country the size of California. Every time I see someone of either description, I steer clear or make a plan for counter-attack... just in case.

I've been stalked twice, groped a handful of times and sexually assaulted once. Japan is not a safe country. It is a relatively safe country.

There's a difference.

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Hassun

Of course the "there is no crime in our country" crap is just that. Crap.
Not having a lot of crime for a long time makes one complacent. And that's where the danger is. When you start denying the truth to keep your precious little "everything is fine" fantasy image the problems start stacking.
Like the general view that Japan is a completely homogeneous society or that most criminals are foreigners. The Japanese seem to have more difficulty than the average Westerner to acknowledge certain negative aspects in their society. And not acknowledging a problem only leads to the problem getting worse.

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Arrianna

"Relatively" I will grant you. While Japan matched other major countries in crime it was on the low end of average. Still not the crime free zone people try and claim. Since I myself have never been "stalked twice, groped a handful of times and sexually assaulted once" I really don't have a point of reference to understand your POV. I did have my apartment broken into once and... nope, that's it. If there was a known slasher in my city I know I would be a lot less calm then you seem to be.

[Edit: sorry. I was tired yesterday and somehow missed this sentence in your post.
You are absolutely correct on that. The studies I read had to estimate and take into account that murder/suicides in Japan are actually recorded as group/family suicide. There is no way to know the actual number so the best you can do is take into account suicide rates for all the countries as well as Japans and even then all you get is an estimate. It took me days to find what little I did (on that specific subject) so I am not surprised you found nada. However the stats on crime in general there were still in the low average for a developed nation, which was actually my point and I am afraid it has gotten lost in the middle of this. /Edit]

All to true. I wish more people were willing to call a spade a spade without worrying about offending everyone. The world would be a lot safer.

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Shodokan

Yeah but didn't they make a big deal out of teenagers killing themselves because of bullying on the Japanese news Tsurara?

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