DEVELOPMENT-JAPAN: Unsettled by Spate of Violent Crimes By Youth

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Jul 4 2000 (IPS) - The string of murders and violent crimes by Japanese youth in recent years reveals social problems in what is usually seen as a safe society, and has become worrisome to many Japanese and their government.

In May, a 17-year old boy was taken into custody after he hijacked a bus for 15 hours, during which he slashed an elderly passenger to death with a knife and wounded several others.

His motive was to take revenge on his parents, who had put him in a mental institution for treatment, according to police reports released after the youth’s arrest.

Two weeks before that horrifying incident, Japan was shocked when police arrested another 17-year-old boy who killed a 64-year- old woman by beating her head with a hammer.

His motive, he told investigators, was, “I wanted to find out how much physical force was needed for a person to die. I was curious to know how it felt to kill a human being.”

Criminal experts point out that while the murder rate in Japan is far lower than in other industrialised countries, these cases indicate that serious social problems are festering in Japan.

“Most of these murders highlight a section of highly disturbed youth. The cases point to the fact that indicate that killing has become a form of thrill and excitement,” says Professor Kageyama, who teaches criminal psychology at the prestigious Tokyo Institute of Technology.

According to National Police Agency figures released in June 1998, murders by juveniles have been rising in the last decade. A total of 2,263 youths were arrested in 1997 for crimes of brutality, an increase of 767 or 51.3 percent over 1996.

The police survey points out that a particular feature in recent crime has been the large number involving “normal” senior and junior high school students.

The report describes this phenomenon as a new era of “crime of the moment”, when students with essentially no history of problems suddenly turn to acts of brutality and violence.

Indeed the young bus hijacker was supposed to have been a regular student, with no background of mental instability until he suddenly began to verbally and physically attack family members when he was in second grade junior high school.

This, according to his parents, was about the time they began to suspect he was bullied in school.

While his teachers reported no bullying, his classmates told the Japanese press that other students had begun to bully the boy. They pointed out: “There is a perception gap between teachers and students in school, which makes life hell for students.”

The Youmiri newspaper, Japan’s largest daily, explains in a recent editorial that most of murders committed by youth involve the school, which illustrates the urgent need for enacting school reforms.

“Many of the murders are carried out by children who have a hard time adjusting to their rigid school system. The key to reform is maybe to develop a system that takes the interest of the child before judging him by his test grades,” says the editorial published after the bus hijacking.

Kageyama also explains that the senseless murders can be attributed to the current pressures faced by young children in Japanese society.

“We are seeing more children with personality disorders which stems from a feeling of empty self,” he explains. “Killing has become a way of self-reconfirmation. By committing a crime the offender is trying establish his existence.”‘

Kageyama takes the example of the boy who killed the old woman to see what death was like, as a typical example of this phenomena, by explaining that boy did not know the difference between life and death.

He says the Japanese families with fewer children mollycoddle their offsprings, showering them with material goods and protecting them from the real world, thus stiffling their development and ability to face harsh reality.

“These young children cannot accept loss because they are not trained by their parents to be independent. Once they fail at stiff entrance exams, they are at a loss at dealing with this setback, a situation that leads them to aggression,” he explains.

Analysts expect this trend to worsen in Japan as long as the current system continues.

Says Kageyama: “The system that seemed to work so well for Japan’s economic prosperity is now showing serious signs of fatigue.”

Perhaps still the most sensational among the spate of heinous crimes was the murder committed in 1997 by a 14-year-old junior high school boy. He had been arrested on suspicion of murdering a younger boy and displaying his head on the school wall for several days.

That murder was followed in January 1998 by a crime by a 13- year-old boy, who stabbed a female teacher to death because she had reprimanded him for misbehaving in class.