Why some Japanese pensioners want to go to jail
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
"But to one of Soapy's proud spirit the gifts of charity are encumbered. If not in coin you must pay in humiliation of spirit for every benefit received at the hands of philanthropy. As Caesar had his Brutus, every bed of charity must have its toll of a bath, every loaf of bread its compensation of a private and personal inquisition. Wherefore it is better to be a guest of the law, which though conducted by rules, does not meddle unduly with a gentleman's private affairs."
Soapy's many attempts fail, but the story ends with a typical O. Henry twist. No spoiler here.
The story was filmed in 1952, one of five stories in "O. Henry's Full House." Charles Laughton played the vagrant. He briefly meets Marilyn Monroe. Watch this segment on YouTube[3] or enjoy the entire film.
[1] https://americanliterature.com/author/o-henry/short-story/th...
Sometimes the prison system is bad enough that most people wouldn't resort to this unless it's a life and death situation. So probably nothing of principle (not wanting to take pity money) or not just as a method to save some more money for a few years.
Journalist does not get stats. Its increasing in absolute numbers because the population over 65 is exploding as baby boomers come in that range. In relative proportion its not increasing at all.
"In 1997 this age group accounted for about one in 20 convictions but 20 years later the figure had grown to more than one in five - a rate that far outstrips the growth of the over-65s as a proportion of the population"
> nd like Toshio, many of these elderly lawbreakers are repeat offenders. Of the 2,500 over-65s convicted in 2016, more than a third had more than five previous convictions.
Those are not unique offenders. Somebody who commits multiple infractions is counted several times.
The graph in the article (1990-2016) looks like the proportion of offences committed by pensioners has roughly risen from 3% to 20% (6.6x increase, maybe 5x if it's 4% to 20%), yet the proportion of over 65s (1990-2016) in Japan has risen from 11.9% to 26.6% (a 2.2x increase)[2].
The source of the BBC graph is in Japanese[3], so I can't get exact figures for the crime and papers I found that did have exact figures only went back as far as 2005.
[1] https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/B06F/production/...
[2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.65UP.TO.ZS?locat...
The graph/data from the Japanese Justice Ministry presented in the article strongly disagrees with you.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Ja...
What you need to prove me I am completely wrong is a subset of 65 years old and older over time, as a single segment, and show me that in that segment there is large increase in percentage. That's not at all what the graphs shows.
So percentage of population roughly doubled, but in the same time the percentage of convictions quadrupled.
[1] http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/nenkan/pdf/yhyou02.pdf
[2] http://www.ipss.go.jp/site-ad/index_english/esuikei/ppfj2012...
> than just repeatedly commenting that the article sucks
The article sucks because it fails to account for several ways to explain the data and jumps right at a conclusion that's pushed by a social narrative.
[1] http://hakusyo1.moj.go.jp/en/66/image/image/h004008002001e.j...
Because that ever achieved anything in the US, except letting off steam?
Looking at everything through the lens of how things are in the United States is dimwitted, to put it very considerately and politely.
When I was under 10, both sets of grandparents and four of five aunts and uncles were within 10 miles, most under 3. Now we're all over the place and a visit isn't a regular frequent thing but a major, rarer, trip.
As I'm in my mid fifties some of the future looks rather bleak. Add longer life expectancy after retirement and for most, better mental and physical health, and you end up with many more years to contemplate your loneliness.
I saw one story a few years back of a retirement home that combined a nursery. Which turned out to be a huge boost for both the kid's development, parents, and the old folks. Every day they would have joint activities. Sounded a great idea that we need far more of, rather than occasional novelty worth reporting.
[1]: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2012/07/07/m...
This podcast episode is all about getting rid of nursing homes and it sort of talks about the way it should be. Communal, and a split of ages.
It just depends what your priorities are. Cats in the cradle.
With temperatures below zero, right now is a particularly busy time.
Given the choice between jail, being outside, or maybe a shelter if you live around a bigger city, I know what i would pick for the winter.
2) room and board
When pensioners or just any adult prefers jail to freedom, it makes you think we failed something as a society.
I’ve seen Nordik jails in a documentary and I’d totally pick that over many other places to live, if I was not able to afford living.
If these people can't get enough human contact, we failed them. There's no reason we shouldn't be able to create meaningful interactions for the elderly.
There's no reason whatsoever they should be isolated.
These are adults, not children. Let's take responsibility for taking care of ourselves. There is no moral basis for blaming others if we individually fail at that (as long as others haven't done anything against us), as you imply.
I also think we need more critique on gratuitous blaming/shaming. It does no good to allow abusive attitude like this, even when's addressed towards a diffuse target as the society at large.
I sometimes think that I'd find it therapeutic to stay in a fitting prison. Some maybe relevant characteristics of mine are that I often seek isolation, and my creative activities are fully isolated of any direct social contact.
I did some Googling of this around the time we were in Lanta, and they sounded terrible
I don't see any reason to take people like myself accountable for the current state of society I inherited from the now pensioner generation, so let me rephrase the last part: "it makes you think they failed something as a society."
What we inherited is done, we can’t change that any more. But we can certainly make tomorrow a little bit better than yesterday.
The short version is that a naive comparison shows that recidivism in Norway is much lower than in the US, a more thorough comparison shows that recidivism is actually not so different. But either way, making prisons worse doesn't actually help fighting crime. So the decision whether prisoners should be treated humanely or not is more about ideology than effectiveness.
And personally I think humans should be treated humanely, no matter what they did.
I don't know, the American prison system doesn't seem to consider that a high importance. The problem in Japan seems to be that the not-even-actually-nice prison system still trumps the conditions under which those pensioners apparently live.
If your prison system is not a complete nightmare and people seem to be intentionally getting themselves imprisoned the right solution isn't to make the prisons worse, it's to fix the social problems that are making people prefer going to prison (i.e. in this case: loneliness, societal neglect, poverty and shame).
I'm not here to defend the American prison system - I'm talking more generally.
> f your prison system is not a complete nightmare and people seem to be intentionally getting themselves imprisoned the right solution isn't to make the prisons worse, it's to fix the social problems that are making people prefer going to prison (i.e. in this case: loneliness, societal neglect, poverty and shame).
Obviously that's the ideal, but it's literally impossible. How is the government (or whichever organisation) going to solve all its citizens' personal problems? If we lived in a world where all people's personal problems were taken care of, prisons would be barely needed.
Money ?
If we are still talking about poverty, loneliness, etc, then the solution is to build old people's homes. As a lot of countries do, so it's clearly not impossible. The residents pay a percentage of their pension and/or fortune, if you're poor you pay little, of you're well off you pay more. But everyone can get a place to live.
The specific problem in Japan as described in the article is that the basic state pension is too low to live off. And with no alternatives you end up as Toshio. The retirement age is also very low in Japan, which doesn't help - you're supposed to live off your pension from you're 60 or even younger. That'll be several decades of very poor economy for a lot of old people.
We have several choices and we make them each second. A choice to respond to this comment or not, for example. And even in a tragic scenario where you can't make any choice about your body, you may still have many others - see Hawking for example.
So you're saying that a human is obligated to live for the maximum span of time possible. Does it still not sound weird?
Rhetorics aside, the power to turn yourself off is very important. Taking away this power has been used throughout history as a means to intensify torture. For someone in suffering, the power to end your life can literaly be the difference between complete powerlessness and empowerment. I've been through a few bouts of depression and can confirm this first-hand.
People want to live but on their own terms. Not spending 20 years in diapers tied to a bed or all alone wasting away with only a robot to talk to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan's_Run
I have seen doctors in the US all too often blame 'old age' for conditions that are preventable or can be significantly improved to forestall aging.
When we were still ruled by nature there were never too many mouths to feed. For the first time in human history half of our citizens are going to be over 65 and there will be consequences.
Surely they have. But you have to order something and there is a good change you won't meet anyone of your age. If you come to a free clinic - you don't pay anything and you are immediately surrounded by people of your age (if we are talking about eldery as in this case).
And yes, that's not good. The whole world hasn't quite come to terms yet with situation that we've got a whole lot of old people, neither with the healthy ones, nor the infirm ones. Given the sheer amount of both, there should be way more opportunities and organizations for them (not just the church and political parties).
But that's not a sexy topic for startup bros and the VCs that love them.
OTOH even regular younger Chinese use IKEA showrooms literally as their living rooms, I can see appeal especially in hot weather
In Russia we have "social welfare centers" where they provide elderly with different sorts of entertainment. (well, entertainment maybe not the best word. This like dance evenings).
Anyway, I’ll take waiting a few minutes for free healthcare over paying for instant.
The only thing I’d like is for the quality to be a bit higher.
I'm half-German, half-Croat. Our excuse of a health minister (Spahn) actually thinks that the solution for the utter lack of staff in the German health system is to bleed the Balkan totally dry... as if that hasn't been going on for decades!
All the people coming here to work in the health sector drop out after a couple of years due to horrible payment and labor conditions, thus leading to more recruiting in ever more remote countries, it's a vicious cycle. The obvious solution would be to massively increase pay to increase retention, but for unknown reasons no one wants to do this...
Sad way, but it's a way of doing it. Can't blame the newer generation as they can barely manage for themselves. Add mental illness that starts in a lot of older people and professional care is needed.
And they aren't the same thing, you yourself admit that, to you the pen is more valuable than the car.
My point is that theft should be followed by a fierce punishment. Regardless of the market price.
https://www.reshareworthy.com/old-lady-alone-on-a-cruise-shi...
Not to ruin the joke, just, if she merely needed food delivered and chores done with someone to take her to the doctor, she could live in a normal residence and hire that help for much less. Assisted-living facilities would provide a step up, then nursing homes provide support a level beyond that.
http://fortune.com/2019/01/12/500-sick-on-cruise-ship-oasis-...