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Comment by AlchemistCamp | Hacker News Reader

It's a very different situation in Japan than most western countries. In western OECD countries, many large immigrant groups, particularly from East Asia or India have noticeably lower crime rates than the baseline. But in Japan, there are no large groups of foreigners in Japan that don't commit crimes at far higher levels than the extremely low Japanese baseline.

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> But in Japan, there are no large groups of foreigners in Japan that don't commit crimes at far higher levels than the extremely low Japanese baseline.

Can you share a source for this?

From the most recent numbers I've found - "foreign nationals" made up 5.5% of all arrests in 2024, while comprising just 3% of the population. But that number includes visitors/tourists as well, and that group accounts for two-thirds of all cases. [0]

Taken together, it seems like foreign residents at worse match the Japanese baseline, but are likely committing crimes less often.

[0] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/19/japan/crime-leg...

Sure: https://isvd.or.jp/en/columns/foreign-nationals-justice-syst...

The crime rate for foreign residents not counting immigrants is 1.72x that of Japanese nationals. After adjusting for age and gender, it's 1.36x.

The piece cites the following:

1) 2024 White Paper on Crime, Part 4 Ch.9 Sec.2-1 (Penal Code offences)（2023） https://hakusyo1.moj.go.jp/jp/71/nfm/n71_2_4_9_2_1.html

2) NPA Foreign National Crime Arrest Statistics（2024） https://www.npa.go.jp/hakusyo/r07/honbun/excel/bb4z00120.xls...

3) Immigration Services Agency of Japan（End of 2024） https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/publications/press/13_00052.html

4) nippon.com — Shortage of Court Interpreters（2017） https://www.nippon.com/ja/currents/d00402/

5) MOJ/ISA Technical Intern Trainee Absconding Statistics（2023） https://www.moj.go.jp/isa/content/001425159.pdf

6) 2024 White Paper on Crime, Part 4 Ch.9 Sec.3-2 (Trials)（2023） https://hakusyo1.moj.go.jp/jp/71/nfm/n71_2_4_9_3_2.html

I don’t like how the phrase “commit crime” frames the foreigner as morally bad.

Japanese people all have a long family history of living inside of the same flavor of society they live in now.

Outsiders might on average have a harder time coping with the expectations of Japanese society, because they don’t share this multigenerational experience in the society. The degree to which they will have a hard time likely depends on how similar the society their own multigenerational experience comes from is to Japanese society, along the most relevant behavioral dimensions.

It’s not that they are bad people, they just have a harder time with the system. We can’t really blame them for that, can we? While at the same time, it is a valid reason to not let them in.

Are they committing crimes typical in other nations, like robbery or littering, or are they behaving in ways that would be socially acceptable but are crimes in Japan?

I'm not speaking of people failing to navigate local bureaucracy or "having a harder time coping with the expectations of Japanese society". I'm talking about theft, battery, and homicide (for which the stats are hardest to dispute).

Regardless of your feelings about assigning blame, it's very hard to fault people for choosing to decrease the likelihood of themselves and their fellow citizens from suffering harm from more outsiders.

Well, prior to the imposition of colonial rule in various parts of the world, were there formal penalties for theft, battery or homicide?

As far as I’m aware, it very much depended on who you know, who your family or tribe is, and the power dynamics between the various groups in the territory.

It’s not as if laws and enforcement banning these actions are universal today, and they absolutely weren’t universal not that long ago.

PS don’t miss where I said… > While at the same time, it is a valid reason to not let them in.

What does the situation prior to "the imposition of colonial rule in various parts of the world" have to do with modern Japan?

Japanese people had similar restrictions on uncontrolled violence back then too, people from some other parts of the world didn’t. People from those other parts may have a harder time complying with restrictions on uncontrolled violence, due to lacking a long familial history with those restrictions. Like, why would someone whose family has had these same kinds of restrictions in place for 1,000 years or more not be better at following them than someone who hasn’t?

> phrase “commit crime” frames the foreigner as morally bad.

Why are progressives so desperate to carry water for criminals?? Criminals suck! They make life worse for everyone else in society.

You might notice that Tokyo is much nicer than literally any city we have in the US.

I think you are pattern matching too hard on what I’m saying.

A population being, on average, substantially less able to comply with social rules (including murder etc) is a perfectly valid reason to bar them from entering (which I mentioned in my original comment). But let’s be realistic about what the problem is. Rhetoric about them being “bad people” essentially does get a knee jerk reaction from progressives, and I’m suggesting we focus on a different angle (which is apparently so compatible with the progressive framing that readers are confused).

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