From our other sites
The story
The thread started with the question “What’s actually causing the rise in juvenile crime?” and turned into a deep dive into National Police Agency statistics. The number of juveniles arrested for penal code offenses, which stood at 160,000 in the first year of Heisei (1989), has dropped to around 24,000 in recent years — but data was also presented showing that since 2022 (Reiwa 4) the trend has turned upward again. This sparked both “still way lower than the Heisei era” takes and “things feel more dangerous because of shady gig-job scams and violent crime” takes. The thread also debated how to even read the statistics — raw case counts, percentage increases, or rate per population.
What people said
Kids these days don't even think about the future to begin with
Well, there's your answer
It's anxiety about the future. Even back in the Showa era, some people worried about pensions and social insurance down the line, but it wasn't nearly as hopeless as now, and the national debt has ballooned to a totally different order of magnitude
Over just the last few years (since Reiwa 4/2022), it's actually turned back upward.
So is my AI chatbot lying to me?
What about around the year 2000?
Heisei 1 is basically still Showa anyway
Even going from 23,000 to 24,000 cases technically counts as an increase
• Latest data (Reiwa 7/2025): Juvenile arrests for penal code offenses topped 24,000, and the share of juveniles among all penal code offenders rose from 8.8% in Reiwa 4 to 12.2%.
• Minors below the age of criminal responsibility (under 14): the number taken into custody for law-breaking acts also jumped — up 16.0% year-on-year (9,178) in the latest data.
Is this actually accurate?
Yeah, it's rising alright, but it's still way lower than the old days by comparison
Quite the V-shaped recovery
Isn't that just because there are fewer juveniles overall now?
And the age of adulthood was lowered too — you're legally an adult from 18 now
Aren't 18 and 19-year-olds still counted as juveniles too, as 'specified juveniles'?
The *perceived* level of safety is definitely worse now though
Well, ordinary crime in general is probably rising too — since 2022. Shady gig-job scams have gotten popular, and it's a fact that public safety has gotten worse
Well sure, that's just how it feels — you forget all the small incidents from way back
I'm not talking about big incidents from the news, I mean what it feels like in everyday life. Even my local public bathhouse has seen more kids acting like 'hangure' (quasi-gang delinquents), and they've had to change all sorts of rules because of it
Is it actually increasing though?
Never even heard of a 12-year-old girl committing robbery resulting in injury, not even in the Heisei era
https://hakusyo1.moj.go.jp/jp/72/nfm/images/full/h3-1-1-1.jpg
As the graph in Re: #49 shows, the most recent peak was around 2000 (Heisei 12)
As Re: #49 shows, it's the rate relative to the juvenile population that's increasing
Asked an AI and apparently it happened in 2000 too
1. Robbery cases in 2000 (Heisei 12)
The National Police Agency's official 'Crime in Heisei 12' report lists the number of children under 14 taken into custody for involvement in robbery.
13-year-olds: 25. Total under 14: 30.
Re: #56
Guess it really did happen
Well of course — people's standards being lower in the past is a constant no matter the era. Even in America, crime numbers go down year after year
Honestly, I think it just dipped during COVID and has basically been flat since around 2020
That generation produced the 'Ice Age generation' (the generation hit hardest by Japan's lost-decade job market), and the Ice Age generation produced Gen Z. It all connects
So does that mean people in the past were even more overprotected?
Background and key points of this discussion
Juvenile crime statistics are published by the National Police Agency in reports like the “Crime White Paper.” The number of juveniles arrested for penal code offenses had two major peaks — in the early 1980s and around 2000 (Heisei 12) — before entering a long decline. As the thread notes, the numbers bottomed out during the COVID pandemic and have turned upward again since 2022 (Reiwa 4) — that’s the recent trend. Where opinions diverged was over how to read this “increase.” Since even a rise from 23,000 to 24,000 cases amounts to a several-percent increase in rate terms, whether you emphasize the absolute change or the percentage change changes the picture considerably. Because the shrinking birthrate means the juvenile population itself is falling, looking at the rate per capita versus the raw case count can also flip the conclusion. On top of that, the 2022 lowering of the age of adulthood means 18- and 19-year-olds are now classified as “specified juveniles,” yet they’re still counted in juvenile crime statistics, so how generations are defined also shapes the debate. Some replies argued today’s level is still low compared to the Heisei-era peak, while others worried about the recent upward trend and more violent incidents — and both claims can hold up statistically, depending on how you slice the numbers.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyou G) thread “[Sad News] What Is Actually Causing the Rise in Juvenile Crime?“
Leave a Reply