Why some Japanese pensioners want to go to jail

Japan is in the grip of an elderly crime wave – the proportion of crimes committed by people over the age of 65 has been steadily increasing for 20 years. The director of “With Hiroshima”, the rehabilitation centre where I met Toshio Takata, also thinks changes in Japanese families have contributed to the elderly crime wave, but he emphasises the psychological consequences not the financial ones. Michael Newman has watched as the Japanese government has expanded prison capacity, and recruited additional female prison guards (the number of elderly women criminals is rising particularly fast, though from a low base).

Source: www.bbc.co.uk