No. of crimes involving foreigners in 2003 tops 40,000

No. of crimes involving foreigners in 2003 tops 40,000

TOKYO � The number of criminal cases involving foreign nationals, excluding those with permanent resident status, rose to 40,615 last year, up 16.9% from the previous year and topping the 40,000 line for the first time, the National Police Agency (NPA) said Thursday.

The police arrested or sent papers to prosecutors on 20,007 foreign nationals in 2003. Foreigners were involved in 27,258 serious criminal cases. Sixty-one were charged with murder, 369 with robbery, and 13,357 were charged with offenses such as prostitution, illegal possession of weapons, or overstaying their visas. (Kyodo News)

Naturally, foreigner does not say where they are from. Numbers are too pell-mell to be relevant. Among the "13,357 were charged with offenses such as prostitution, illegal possession of weapons, or overstaying their visas", what is the percentage of people overstaying their visa, even for a single day ? That is bascially a crime that Japanese cannot be charged with. Prostitution is almost limited to Chinese, Filipinas, Thai and a few other East-Asian countries.

69 murders and 369 robberies in a country of 126.000.000 people, among which more than 1 million foreigners, that is not so bad. I'd like to compare the average crime rate per capita among each nationality, including Japanese. I am almost certain that Westerners (living in Japan) have a much lower crime rate than the Japanese. Unfortunately, even if the authorities know it, they are never going to acknowledge it. That is probably why they always refer to "foreigners", rather than talk of nationalities or regional groups (South-East Asian, Africans, Middle-Easterners, Europeans, North Americans...)

Damn, beat me to it. But I'm glad...interesting article... :note:

wow..........
I didn't know there was THAT many crimes........
my country having crimes is like once in a bluemoon.....

Every so often in myarea the police send out a little community bulletin. A few rotations ago there was a little section asking people to be on the look out for foreign criminals, specifically "foreigners engaged in suspicious activities." Since we live near the ocean there is a very low-level of fear about adbuction and immigrant smuggling along with the standard fear of foreign criminals to begin with.

The bulletin could have read "be aware of suspicious activity" but the whole mood changes when you throw in "foreigner." This type of things is one of my least favorite things about Japan...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mandylion

The bulletin could have read "be aware of suspicious activity" but the whole mood changes when you throw in "foreigner." This type of things is one of my least favorite things about Japan...

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I agree that this is disagreeable and narrow-minded from the Japanese authorities. Especially that yakuza are surely involved in more illegal activities than all foreigners in Japan combined. But they never care looking in their backyard first. I have never seen any signs like "beware of yakuza", even in hot districts like Shinjuku Kabukicho, Ikebukuro or Asakusa.

Personally, I go to work (usually in suit) by bicycle everyday, and in February this year I've been stopped 4 times (twice in 2 days !) by the police to check my alien registration card and/or bicycle number (they call their colleagues on the walkie-talkie, who verify that the bicycle number match my name). I can't say I the look the least involved in suspicious activities (frankly, I look straighter than even the average salaryman), and what's more, I find it both harassing and petty from them. A new bicycle cost less than 10.000 yen in Tokyo - 1000 yen if second-hand. Mine is 2 years-old, so it's resale value is rather low. I always want to tell those cops that they needn't bother as even my necktie or my watch are more expensive than the bike - so why bothering verifying so worthless property ? Third-world mentality, really. ったく、くそ面倒くせ奴だな！

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eternal Wind

wow..........
I didn't know there was THAT many crimes........
my country having crimes is like once in a bluemoon.....

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Singapore is a very safe country, but not so different from Japan. The main difference is that Singapore has a population about 35 times lower than Japan. I've never seen any violence or crime in Japan in 2,5 years. Without the media, I wouldn't know the extend of criminality in Japan. Singapore may have the same criminality rate but stricter media control (that is almost certain, as everything is so tightly government-controlled).

Yeah, I hate these things, just thinly veiled racism. They have to blend the visa-overstaying with other crimes to hide the fact that the largest part of all those crimes are immigration-related. Visa crimes are inapplicable to Japanese citizens, and are always used as a way to make foreigners seem more violent and dangerous.

You can download the report (Japanese only) here. The relavant information about foreigners is in charts 8 and 9 (pages 40-43), but those pages only break down the total of foreign crimes by prefecture. When breaking down by the types of crimes, lo and behold immigration violations are not included. But the crimes they do list include:

61 murders
369 burglaries
13 arsons
34 rapes
7 kidnappings
42 吐orced obscenity� charges
704 trespassing
155 car thefts
52 purse snatchings
81 pickpockets

For a grand total of 1518 arrests. So those numbers start to become incredibly suspicious--consider:

27,258 "serious" cases, of which:
1,518 were those specifically listed above
13,357 were offenses "such as" prostitution, illegal possession of weapons, or overstaying their visas

Which leaves 12,383 "serious" cases left out. What were they? And why were only 1518 of the total 40,615 crimes (less than 4%) clearly enumerated? Where can a more complete list be found?

I'd be willing to bet that a very large portion of the crimes were nothing more than visa overstays--and that it is no accident at all that the vast majority of crimes by foreigners in Japan were left ambiguous.

And then there's the fact that these are arrests, not convictions--and foreigners are more often suspected of crimes, in part because of blatantly racist reports such as these.

I think I'll blog about this....

Found another report at the National Police Agency web site (relevant chart on page 2). It clears up a few things.

First of all, it has to be understood that two different numbers are being bandied about, to some confusion. One is the number of cases, the other is the number of people arrested--and subsets from the numbers are tossed about in ways that can be rather confusing.

First is the terms--please help me out here if I am not getting them right. The first term is 総検挙件数, which translates to "whole number of arrests," but I believe refers to the number of separate charges filed. The other term is 総検挙人員, which I translate as "total number of individuals arrested."

The first number is 40,615, the second is 20,007. The strange thing is, the number of "atrocious crimes" appears to have more people arrested than there are charges brought--37 murder charges against 61 people? 255 robbery charges brought against 369 people? I must be missing something.

Anyway, since the news article used stats from the second number of 20,007, let's look at those numbers from this NPA report:

Atrocious crimes (477):

Murder: 61
Robbery: 369
Arson: 13
Rape: 34

Other serious crimes (8,248):

Violent offenses: 633
Theft: 4,555
Intellectual crimes: 497
Sex industry offenses: 93
Others: 2,470

"Special" crimes (11,282):

Immigration-related: 9,211
風営適正化法 (can't translate this): 354
Prostitution: 173
Illegal weapons possession: 98
Total drug crimes: 858
Others: 588

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Okay, let's take a look here. Fully 46%, or nearly half, of all criminals are visa overstayers or otherwise illegal aliens. Kinda puts a damper on the whole "there are so many foreign criminals" numbers, especially when you consider that even with immigration numbers, the crime rate among foreigners is still lower than that of Japanese! This means that the terrible foreign crime threat is completely bogus--not counting immigration violations (only fair, as Japanese by definition cannot commit them), foreign residents are actually less likely, by half, to commit a crime than a Japanese is.

Also, let's take a little look at the number quoted in the article:

"Sixty-one were charged with murder, 369 with robbery, and 13,357 were charged with offenses such as prostitution, illegal possession of weapons, or overstaying their visas."

Where did they get the "13,357" number? Counting prostitution, illegal possession of weapons, and overstaying visas, you get 9,482--so what were the other 3,875?

Well, here is where they made an error (to be generous). That 13,357 number comes from the first set of numbers, where the total is 40,615--yep, they're mixing and matching to no logical tune. Taking some numbers from one table and other numbers from a different table, and mixing them up.

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Then there is the country of origin.

Again, taking from the second table where the total is 20,007, the offenders fall into these nationalities:

Chinese: 8,996
Korean: 1,793
Filipino: 1,333
Brazilian: 1,224
Vietnamese: 718
Thai: 699
Peruvian: 573
Iraqi: 573
Iranian: 410
Myanmar (-ese?): 327
Malaysian: 315
Others: 3,619

Strangely enough, when counted on the first chart, with the 40,615 total, Chinese come first, then Turks--who scored up 5,353 offenses with 5,334 of them being theft (something fishy there)--then Brazilians, Koreans, Filipinos, Columbians (also nearly all theft charges), Vietnamese, and so on. I can only imagine that they must be counting each item stolen as a different charge, otherwise how could a couple dozen turks get arrested more than 5,000 times? I would love to pick apart their counting methodology here!

There are more numbers to be deciphered in the report, but the one point that stands out is that the large majority of criminals are of Asian origin--including probably most Peruvians and Brazilians, who are Japanese descendants. As you may recall, Japanese politicians, seeing the need for an influx of foreign workers, tried to be clever and allow descendants of Japanese immigrants to South America to 'come home,' apparently thinking that they would fit right in. Not so.

In any case, perhaps as many as half of all of these foreign offenders would be relatively hard to pick out from the Japanese crowd. And, of course, the Chinese are particularly noticed by Japanese politicians like Shintaro Ishihara, who portray them as a deadly crime wave threatening the entire country--which makes me wonder how many get accused of, and charged for, crimes they did not actually commit.

I recall back in the 80's when any foreigner was seen as a criminal, and there were stories of Japanese criminals who tried to fake being Westerners when they committed crimes. One case in particular was funny, as a Japanese thief tried to rob a store, but mangled his English so badly that he was literally laughed right out of the store.

It makes me wonder, however, how many of those "Chinese" crimes are Japanese criminals faking it, knowing that the environment is receptive to scapegoating.

And then there is the counting of permanent residents who are in fact Japanese in all but name, but live in Japan for generations as foreigners--Koreans, mostly--but who are counted to add to the "foreign" crime wave.

All in all, a sad twisting and mangling of numbers to suit a thoroughly racist political climate.

>please help me out here if I am not getting them right.
総検挙件数 = "number of cases arrested"
総検挙人員 = "number of persons arrested"

eg.
1theft case by 3accomplices + 5theft cases by another burglar --->総検挙件数6, 総検挙人員4


By the way, why don't you compare the number of crimes(or crime rates) committed by foreigners in Japan with that of committed by Japanese outside Japan? Is it unfair or illogical to think it from this aspect?

海外邦人援護統計
http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/toko/tokei/engo/

About cases and accomplices--I guess so, but the numbers can be misleading--bet you that most people figured that 61 people were murdered by foreigners (when the real number was 37).

I hadn't known about the overseas numbers, I'll take a look at them as well. (Why don't you do the comparison? :-) )

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Originally Posted by kara

eg.
1theft case by 3accomplices + 5theft cases by another burglar --->総検挙件数6, 総検挙人員4

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So, I think we could just say :
総検挙件数 = number of cases
総検挙人員 = number of people arrested

Quote:

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By the way, why don't you compare the number of crimes(or crime rates) committed by foreigners in Japan with that of committed by Japanese outside Japan? Is it unfair or illogical to think it from this aspect?

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I think the point of this thread is not to see the percentage of crimes committed by Japanese in Japan (as in any country, natives have the highest %age), nor abroad - although it would be interesting to compare the proportion of crimes of people of one nationality (eg Japanese) as a percentage of the total residents in that country. For example, if there are 10.000 Japanese living in France and they commit 10 crimes, then their ratio would be 0,1% of the total number of Japanese residing in France.

But anyway, I think that most Japanese living abroad are either business people (expats), students or diplomats, i.e. the people with the lowest crime rate in any country.

The point of this thread is mainly to see what kind of crimes foreigners commit in Japan and where these foreigners are from.

One of the problem of these statistics is Japanese language itself. Japanese does not differentiate "crime" and "offence". I am not 100% sure how these are divided in Western countries, but I think that :
- Crimes includes murder, rape, arson, kidnapping, robbery, thefts (car, purse, wallets...), etc.
- Offences are visa overstaying, use of drugs, illegal weapon possession, speeding, prostitution, etc.

The main difference is that crimes are causing damage, loss or trauma to someone, while offences are just doing something illegal without hurting anyone.

I don't think it fair to consider the number of "cases" (総検挙件数) to asssess the importance of foreign crime in a country. Let u concentrate on the number of criminal and offenders, regardles of how active they are. Otherwise, just a few "proffesional criminals" could tarnish the image of their country by committing hundreds or thousands of crimes each, like the bunch of Turks committing 5334 robberies out of 5353 crimes listed for Turkey (only 19 other cases of crimes, maybe committed by the same few people !).

Now it is interesting to see that out of 20,007 people arrested (in the 40,615 cases), 8,996 (45%) were Chinese. East Asians countries listed (China, Korea, Philippines, Vietnam, Thai, Myanmar, Malaysia) account for 14,181 or 70,9% of all crimes and offences.

Brazil and Peru totalize 9%, Iran 2%, and non specified countries 18%.

Let us now divide this between crimes and offences, out of the total of 20,007 (with nationalities' %age in order of importance in brackets => China=C, Korea=K, Philippines=Ph, Peru=Pe, Brazil=B, Vietnam=V, Thailand=T, Iran=I, Others=O).

Crimes : 5,665 (C=48,7%, B=12,3%, K=5,2%, Pe=5%)

Serious : 1,110 (C=40,6%, B=17,5%, K=9,2%, Pe=4% - O=19,2%)

- Murders : 61
- Rapes : 34 (B=20,5%, C=14,7%, K=11,7%, Pe=11,7%)
- Violent offenses: 633 (C=32,2%, B=13,7%, K=11,7%, Ph=5,5%)
- Arsons : 13
- Roberies : 369 (C=57,7%, Ph=22,7%, K=3,8%, Pe=3,5%)

Minor : 4,555 (C=50,7%, B=11%, V=9,4%, Pe=5,2%, K=4,2%)

- Theft: 4,555

Offences : 10,694 (C=40,3%, K=11,5%, Ph=9%, T=5,9%, I=3,4%)

- Illegal weapon possession : 98
- Prostitution : 173
- Sex-industry related (風営適正化法) : 354
- Drug-related : 858
- Immigration-related : 9,211

Others & Non specified : 3,555

- Intellectual property : 497
- Others: 588
Others (serious) : 2,470


Non-specified crimes/offences notwithstanding, 2/3 of the so-called crimes are actually offences, which means, they aren't hurting anybody. Only 5% of the total are serious crimes.

Altogether, Chinese committed 48,7% of crimes and 40,3% of offences. East Asians have a higher rates of offences, while Brazilans and Peruvians account for 12,3% and 5% of all crimes, which is more than any country but China.

It is also worth noticing that among the 323 Burmese (Myanmar) arrested, 301 were for immigration reason, 11 for thefts, 11 for "others" and only one serious crime (a robbery). Malaysia has very similar statistics (238 immigration and 31 drug offences out of 315). If Myanmar and Malaysia get such "good" statistics, I can imagine that very few Westerners are represented among the 20,007 "crimes", except for some visa overstayers.

Quote:

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So, I think we could just say :
総検挙件数 = number of cases

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Thanks.　またおかしな所があったら教えてください。

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maciamo(11-03-04, 16:26)

69 murders and 369 robberies in a country of 126.000.000 people, among which more than 1 million foreigners, that is not so bad. I'd like to compare the average crime rate per capita among each nationality, including Japanese. I am almost certain that Westerners (living in Japan) have a much lower crime rate than the Japanese.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maciamo(Today, 11:05)

I think the point of this thread is not to see the percentage of crimes committed by Japanese in Japan (as in any country, natives have the highest %age), nor abroad................The point of this thread is mainly to see what kind of crimes foreigners commit in Japan and where these foreigners are from.

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I see. Three months have passed.

Quote:

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The main difference is that crimes are causing damage, loss or trauma to someone, while offences are just doing something illegal without hurting anyone.

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Business people (expats), students or diplomats must be the people of the lowest crime rate as you said. And do you think what type of people are the highest? And about illegal immigrants, it's obvious that serious problems will occur when they ensure a sertain number of populations, even if they are good people as individuals. Japan have already experienced it in these 60 years with 2-3 millions of immigrants from Korea.

Quote:

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Unfortunately, even if the authorities know it, they are never going to acknowledge it. That is probably why they always refer to "foreigners", rather than talk of nationalities or regional groups (South-East Asian, Africans, Middle-Easterners, Europeans, North Americans...)

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I think the reverse is true. We are too aware/nervous of the several nationalities of frequent crimes, so they(not only Japanese, but including the people from those countries) want to hide the fact. That policy made a good achievement in terms of reducing the discrimination toward the great number of their innocent countrymen during the "mass-media" era. But in this "internet" era, such information control may have the opposite effect.

Quote:

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I don't think it fair to consider the number of "cases" (総検挙件数) to asssess the importance of foreign crime in a country. Let u concentrate on the number of criminal and offenders, regardles of how active they are.

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To compare the number of Japanese criminal with the number of some nationality's criminal + offenders may be unfair. However, it doesn't mean that

1)Japan(ese) should not blame foreign offenders, or
2)criminal comparison is important, while offenders or c+o comparison is meaningless, or
3)Japan(ese) should not control the number,nationality,type,ability of immigrants.

I have just found the stats per region (I didn't see them at the bottom of the stats page first and had to make all the calculations by myself :blush: ). Well, out of the 20,007 people arrested :

- 83,3% were from Asia
- 10,9% were from South America
- 1,3% were from North America (0,8% from USA)
- 1,5% were from Europe
- 1,2% were from Russia
- 1,3% were from Africa
- 0,5% were from Oceania

Considering only the 8,725 crimes (刑法犯), so not the offences such as visa overstaying, however,

- 74,5% were from Asia
- 17,7% were from South America
- 2,2% were from North America (1,4% from USA)
- 2% were from Europe
- 1,8% were from Russia
- 0,9% were from Africa
- 0,8% were from Oceania

The comparison between the number of crimes and offences committed by Japanese and foreigners in Japan is also interesting. Considering that the foreign population of Japan represents 1,46% of the 127 million people living in Japan, it is easy to see what kind of crime/offence has the highest incidence rate among foreigners.

The following crimes exceed the proportion of foreigners who committed them :

Serious crimes (悪犯) : 5,7% (committed by foreigners)
Thefts : 2,4%
Intellectual property : 3,6%
- Prostitution : 1,6%
Offences : 15,3% (but includes immigration offences - without 3,2%)

The following crimes have a lower incidence among foreigners than Japanese :

- Violent offences : 1,3% (I guess that includes people fighting in trains and yakusa activities for the 98,7% of Japanese)

Now, let's calculate the proportion of criminals and offenders among all nationalities to see which one are more problematic regardless of the actual number of people living in Japan for each country. To achieve this I just divide the number of crimes by the number of resident for each country (stats from Japan Statistical Bureau.

[country] [residents] / [people arrested (crimes + offences)] = % (crimes + offences)

Japan : 127,435,000 / 433,305 ( 370,877 + 62,428) = 0,34% (0,29% + 0,05%)
Korea : 625,422 / 1,793 (496 + 1,297) = 0,29% (0,08% + 0,21%)
China : 424,282 / 8,996 (4,444 + 4,552) = 2,12% (1,05% + 1,07%)
Brazil : 268,332 / 1,224 (1005 + 219) = 0,46% (0,37% + 0,09%)
Philippines : 169,359 / 1,333 (329 + 1,004) = 0,79% (0,19% + 0,6 %)
Peru : 51,272 / 573 (364 + 209) = 1,12% (0,71% + 0,41%)
USA : 47,970 / 166 (119 + 47) = 0,35% (0,25% + 0,1%)
Thailand : 33,736 / 699 (68 + 631) = 2,1% ( 0,23% + 1,87%)
Vietnam : 21,050 / 718 (549 + 169) = 3,4% (2,61% + 0,79%)
UK : 18,508 / 72 (47 + 25) = 0,39% (0,25% + 0,14%)
Russia : 6,026 / 244 (160 + 84) = 4,05% (2,66% + 1,39%)
Iran : 5,769 / 410 (47 + 363) = 7,1% (0,81% + 6,29%)
Pakistan : 8,225 / 301 (44 + 257) = 3,7% (0,53% + 3,17%)
Bangladesh : 8,703 / 307 (28 + 279) = 3,5% (0,32 + 3,18%)

By region :

Asia : 1,371,171 / 16,666 (6,498 + 10,168) = 1,22% (0,47% + 0,75%)
South America : 334,602 / 2,180 (1,542 + 638) = 0,65% (0,46% + 0,19%)
North America : 63,201 / 262 (191 + 71) = 0,41% (0,3% + 0,11%)
Europe (Russia excluded) : 49,262 / 285 (176 + 109) = 0,58% (0,36% + 0,22%)
Oceania : 15,898 / 100 (75 + 25) = 0,63% (0,47% + 0,16%)
Africa : 9,694 / 268 (81 + 186) = 2,76% (0,84% + 1,92%)

Highest rate of crimes/offences per country

That means that by nationality, the highest rate of criminals and offenders combined is found among Iranian (7,1%), Russian (4,05%), Pakistani (3,7%), Bangldeshi (3,5%), Vietnamese (3,4%), Chinese (2,12%), Thai (2,1%) and Peruvian (1,12%), which are the only countries with a large number of residents in Japan with a percentage above 1%.

The Japanese crime rate is 0,34%, similar to that of US citizens(0,35%), Brits (0,39%), Brazilians (0,46%). Koreans have the lowest crime rate, which is worth mentioning as they are the single largest group of foreigners in Japan (1/3 of all foreigners).

Per continent, Africans have by far the highest crime rate (2,76%), followed by Asians (1,22%).

Highest rate of crimes only per country

If we omit the offences, as most of them are visa-related and cannot compare to Japanese rates, and concentrate on real crimes, we find a completely different ranking though. Iranians that topped the total of crimes and offences are actually for the greatest part offenders only. But most Vietnamese, Russians, and even Japanese were arrested for more crimes than offences. Here is the real crime rate :

- Russians (2,66%)
- Vietnamese (2,61%)
- Chinese (1,05%)
- Iranians (0,81%)
- Peruvians (0,71%)
- Pakistani (0,53%)
- Brazilians (0,37%)
- Bangladeshi (0,32%)
- Japanese (0,29%)
- Americans (0,25%)
- Britons (0,25%)
- Thai (0,23%)
- Philippinos (0,19%)
- Koreans (0,08%)

These numbers are extremley interesting because it shows that combined crimes and offences can be very misleading. Thai and Vietnamese have a similar combined number (699 and 718) but 90% of Thai arrested are offenders, while about 80% of Vietnamese arrested are criminals. As a result, the real crime rate of Vietnamese is 11 times higher than that of Thais.

We also see that Japanese themselves are more likely to commit real crimes than Westerners, Thai, Filipinos and Koreans. Koreans are by far again the most docile residents in Japan, with an fantastically low crime rate (0.08%), 4,5 times lower than that of Japanese.

What these number teach us is not to assimilate neighouring countries haphazardly. In Japan, Chinese commit 13x more crimes than Koreans, and Vietnamese also 13x more than Thai or Filipinos. Russians commit over 10x more crimes than British or Americans citizens.

In the continent ranking, Africa still has the highest rate (0,84%), but it is this time much closer to the average. Asians, South Americans and Oceanians have about the same real crime rate (0,47%), while North Americans and Europeans have the lowest (0,3 and 0,36%).

> stats from Japan Statistical Bureau.
> Japan : 127,435,000 / 453,312 (379,602 + 73,710) = 0,36% (0,3% + 0,06%)

First, you shouldn't use this stats as Japanese one. "453,312 (379,602 + 73,710)" is the grand total about the number of crimes IN Japan.

Second, you can know the stats of "Japanese +foreign nationals with permanent resident status" when you do subtraction from your reports, but you never know the real "Japanese only" number. As I wrote above, they want to hide it and don't release it. All the sources we ordinary citizens can get are some technical(but not governmental) reports/researches and sensational articles.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kara

> stats from Japan Statistical Bureau.
> Japan : 127,435,000 / 453,312 (379,602 + 73,710) = 0,36% (0,3% + 0,06%)

First, you shouldn't use this stats as Japanese one. "453,312 (379,602 + 73,710)" is the grand total about the number of crimes IN Japan.

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Sorry, you are right. Thanks for noticing. It should be 433,305 ( 370,877 + 62,428) = 0,34% (0,29% + 0,05%). I have rectified it in the post above. That doesn't make such a big difference. Japan's ranking compared to other countries stays the same.

What is more, I suspect that less Japanese have been arrested compared to the real number of crimes or offences, because, as BlogD said, foreigners (especially those who do not look Japanese) have a higher chance sof being suspected and arrested, even if they aren't condemned because they were not the real culprits.

In addition, many problems are never reported to the police by the Japanese, especially when they can settle the issue between them. So again, once foreigners are involved, the chances are much higher that the police be involved and that it appears in the statistics. The point is that when one of the side does not speak Japanese (or not well enough), the police must be called. That certainly increases considerably the number of "official" foreignc crimes and offences.

One more thing I wanted to mention is that I unfortunately do not have the statstics for European countries except the UK. I guess the difference in crime rate between Western and Eastern Europe must be similar to that of North and South America, in which case, Western European (at least some countries), could have the lowest crime rate of any nationality in Japan.

Ok, after all, your conclusion is:
Japanese police and their stats are doubtful and we shouldn't take it as truth. Let's talk the truth beyond the crappy stats.
だったら最初からもっともらしく統計なんか引っ張ってこないで下さいよ。その手のネタだってわかってたら付 き合わなかったのに。:sick:

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Originally Posted by kara

Ok, after all, your conclusion is:
Japanese police and their stats are doubtful and we shouldn't take it as truth. Let's talk the truth beyond the crappy stats.

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Don't misunderstand me. I only said that the crime rate of Japanese is probably higher because lots of people do not report incidents to the police if they can avoid it. Stats for foreigners are probably more reliable. That would be an incredible waste of time, energy and money for the NPA to make all these stats every year if they were crappy.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maciamo

I suspect that less Japanese have been arrested compared to the real number of crimes or offences, because, as BlogD said, foreigners (especially those who do not look Japanese) have a higher chance sof being suspected and arrested, even if they aren't condemned because they were not the real culprits.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Maciamo

Don't misunderstand me. I only said that the crime rate of Japanese is probably higher because lots of people do not report incidents to the police if they can avoid it. Stats for foreigners are probably more reliable.

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suspect.... probably....
Where's the stats which confirms these opinions? :?




Sorry, now I'm a bit 調子に乗ってしまいました。:p(btw, how do I "say cyoushi ni noru" in English?)
I never think that Japanese police are more generous for foreigners than for Japanese (and yours must be...), but I also never think that the crime-arrest ratio about foreign criminals and offenders is higher than that of Japanese. And we can find such opinions(or iiwakes, do you remember another topic with me about it?) against the stats, not only the pros for foreigners, but also cons. Intelligent person like you can show more than 20 theories for both sides, if not partial-minded.

But anyway, as someone said above, the point of this thread is mainly to see what kind of crimes foreigners commit in Japan and where these foreigners are from. To denigrate the stats without reliable sources may be not so preferable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kara

suspect.... probably....
Where's the stats which confirms these opinions? :?

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This is the interpretation of the stats. I am just saying that the stats might miss some crimes that are unreported to the police. Of course, they cannot be listed in the stats, otherwise there is no point in interpreting !

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Sorry, now I'm a bit 調子に乗ってしまいました。:p

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That's only natural. I also do, when I see signs "beware of foreigners" in Japan and that I am visibly one of them.

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(btw, how do I "say cyoushi ni noru" in English?)

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Overreacted ?

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I never think that Japanese police are more generous for foreigners than for Japanese (and yours must be...), but I also never think that the crime-arrest ratio about foreign criminals and offenders is higher than that of Japanese.

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I heard stories of teenagers trying to set fire to their school, or people stealing things (in comapnies, schools, organizations...), but that were never reported to the police, because the people in the organization didn't want to make it publicly known to preserve their image. As long as they can find and punish the culprits within the organization or even neighbourhood (especially in snall villages), they won't tell the police because most Japanese dislike having to deal with the police. That is why these crimes or offences are not reported.

However, if people know that an "outsider", especially a foreigner, is responsible for the crime or offence, then they will have no choice but contact the police. One reason is the language. Another is the "fear of foreigners". But the most important is that this foreigner is not part of the "group" and consequently, the can't take care of him/her by themselves. I am mostly talking of minor crimes, not murder, robberies, etc. Anyhow, vicious crimes (悪犯) only account for 0,02% of all crimes.

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But anyway, as someone said above, the point of this thread is mainly to see what kind of crimes foreigners commit in Japan and where these foreigners are from. To denigrate the stats without reliable sources may be not so preferable.

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I do not denigrate them. I think the comparison among foreigners is still fair.

>I think the comparison among foreigners is still fair.

So, it may be the time to return to the point of this thread. Now I've nothing to insist on but one thing:
悪犯--->凶悪犯(kyouaku-han).

では、またどこかのthreadでよろしくお願いします。　:wave:

I have finally edited the statistics and crime rate of foreigners in Japan, this time based on the number of visitors + residents instead of just residents, as it is obvious that the number of people arrested does not take visa status into consideration, but only nationality.

Thanks you for pointing that out.

It now appears, as I suspected, that Westerners in Japan (residents or visitors) commit in average 15x less crimes than the Japanese. This is only natural, as tourists do not normally commit crimes, and most Western residents came to Japan by themselves, either as well-paid expats, diplomats, spouses of Japanese citizens, university students or, for the biggest part, people who are so interested by Japan and its culture that they decided to fly to the other end of the world (well, at least for Europeans and Americans) to live in the country that fascinates them. Most crimes must consequently be commited by people coming with some bad intend in mind (drug traffickers, mafia...). Let us not forget that US soldiers in Japan have a very high crime rate, maybe proportionally higher than any other foreign civilians, if we believe this article.

In the "statistics and crime rate of foreigners in Japan" that you mention, there are some serious statistical problems--the way things are compared tries so hard to minimize the foreign crime rate that a lot of people reading it are just going to dismiss it as dishonest. From the more complete treatment in postings in this forum it's clear that the basic premise is right on and that the numbers do support what is said, so it's unfortunate that the article is so easily dismissable. If I've missed something and there is a reasonable basis for these decisions, please let me know. However, it would also be good to include those explanations in the article to keep other readers from having the same reaction I did.

The main problems:

First, including visitors vastly inflates the number of foreigners, especially from Western countries that send a lot of tourists, thus driving down the crime rate. Someone who's here for a few days is obviously much less likely to commit a crime than someone who's here all year--and since the Japanese mostly live here and only one fourth of the foreigners you count do (well under a tenth for the mostly white countries), this method of counting gives the foreigners a big advantage.

Second, the "crimes" and "offenses" distinction is dubious. Not counting visa violations as crimes makes sense, especially for comparison with Japanese, who can't commit them. And speeding obviously doesn't count as a crime in many people's minds--look how many Japanese own radar detectors. However, drug use, weapons possession, and prostitution are questionable calls--just because I don't consider pot possession a big deal doesn't mean the Japanese have to agree with me. I want to use the information in this article to counter Japanese people's stereotypes of foreigners as criminals--if I tell some guy in a bar that using drugs or carrying a gun isn't a crime, he's not going to take me seriously. Not counting these offenses when comparing crimes is just begging to be ignored--any intelligent person is just going to say I'm discounting a large number of foreign crimes to order to fudge the numbers in my favor.

http://tinyurl.com/dkgoe

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Originally Posted by kara

>please help me out here if I am not getting them right.
総検挙件数 = "number of cases arrested"
総検挙人員 = "number of persons arrested"
eg.
1theft case by 3accomplices + 5theft cases by another burglar --->総検挙件数6, 総検挙人員4
By the way, why don't you compare the number of crimes(or crime rates) committed by foreigners in Japan with that of committed by Japanese outside Japan? Is it unfair or illogical to think it from this aspect?
海外邦人援護統計
http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/toko/tokei/engo/

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海外邦人援護統計 means statistics upon "Japanese crime victims outside Japan".

Oh goodness! Y'all got my head spinning with all those numbers. I think I'll just stick to trying to keep my own nose clean and not worry about other people, except to make sure I don't become a victim. To that end I'll keep an eye on anyone acting odd, whether they look Japanese or from outside Japan. Well, little green people might worry me, too.


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