Citation

Hamai K. Jpn. J. Sociol. Criminol. 2013; 38: 53-77.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Japanese Association of Sociological Criminology)

DOI

10.20621/jjscrim.38.0_53

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Since the middle of the 1990s, penal code offences reported to the police rose sharply, hitting a peak in 2002 and declining sharply thereafter. The number of reported offences is now half of what it was 10 years ago. This paper will discuss the factors affecting the sharp decline in penal code offenses reported to the police by focusing on street crimes. In addition, because the crime rate has dropped in many developed countries, I will explore the general factors that enable us to reduce crime from a long-term perspective. Needless to say, the number of crimes reported to the police does not necessarily indicate the real number of crimes taking place in these countries. Police statistics are affected not only by the crime situation, but also by police policy. Police statistics show the number of cases dealt with by the police. The question is why, since 2002, the number of crimes reported to the police has continued to drop for 10 years? It is partially because the police have set numerical reduction targets on the number of recorded crimes, especially on street crimes such as thefts from cars and bicycle thefts. The police have made a lot of effort to reduce the number of such crimes by developing new street crime prevention methods. Many thefts from vending machines have been prevented by target-hardening, that is, making the machines more robust. At the same time, as it is said, "necessity is the mother of invention," and some of police officers have changed the way of counting crimes because they are evaluated by the numbers. According to the number of murders and the results of the crime victimization surveys, the actual crime rate has been decreasing since well before 2002. The next question is why the number of actual crimes has been decreasing. One of the answers is the declining birthrate. Normally, crime rates drop with aging, especially after 30 years of age. Lowering birthrate decreases the youth population. The less young people there are, the less crimes there are. In addition, Steven Pinker argues that the key to explaining the decline of violence is to understand the inner demons (such as sadism and revenge) that incline people toward violence and the better angels (such as self-control and empathy) that steer them away from it. Security consciousness encouraged by the police might have contributed to the reduction in the number of street crimes. However, there is a fine line between wariness of unknown people and distrust. We should bear in mind that too much security consciousness may undermine the caring power of communities, which, it is argued, is the most powerful factor in crime prevention.

Keywords

crime statistics; numerical target; street crime; 数値目標; 犯罪統計; 街頭犯罪