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双语阅读|日本老年人犯罪率增加是他们变坏了?不,主要是因为穷

2017-12-01 编译/周祎 翻吧

THE 74-year-old burglar evaded police in Osaka, Japan’s second-largest city, for eight years. He committed more than 250 burglaries, making off with items worth some ¥30m ($266,500), the police said, before he was finally caught last month. But he has at least told his captors that he is ready to retire.

在日本第二大城市大阪,一位74岁窃贼已在逃八年。警方称,他们于上个月最终将其逮捕归案。根据嫌犯供认,过去他一共犯案超过250起,涉案金额约3000万日元(26.65万美元)。但至少,这位窃贼在被逮后向警方表达了退休之意。


Not all Japan’s elderly criminals are willing to follow suit. New figures from the government show that almost a quarter of criminals aged over 65 reoffend within two years, more than double the rate of those under 29. Some 70% of the wrinkly wrongdoers in prison in 2016 had previously spent time behind bars. And there are ever more of them: in 2015 more than 20% of arrests were of people aged over 65—up from 6% in 2005. In America, in comparison, over-65s account for barely 1% of arrests.

在日本,不是所有老年罪犯都愿意退休的。官方发布的最新数据显示,有近四分之一65岁以上老年罪犯在出狱两年内再次犯罪,再犯罪比率是29岁以下年轻人的两倍多。2016年在狱的老年罪犯中,70%是累犯。并且这个人数还在增多:2015年日本逮捕的嫌疑犯中,65岁以上的老人超过20%。十年前的2005年,该比率只有6%。相比之下,在美国,该比率只有1%。


The majority of crimes the grey-haired commit are petty, such as theft and shoplifting. Analysts reckon it is a sign of poverty, which is relatively widespread among the old (by the government’s count, 13.6% of households headed by someone over 65 are poor, compared with 9.9% for the population as a whole). Sociologists believe that loneliness and boredom spur crime too.

多数老年人犯罪都较轻,如偷盗、入店行窃。分析人士认为,这是贫困所致,因为在日本,越来越多的老年人正变得贫困(根据日本政府统计,在以65岁以上老人为户主的家庭中,有13.6%的为贫困家庭,而日本全国贫困家庭比率为9.9%)。社会学者认为,孤独感和对生活的厌倦也是犯罪率上升的原因。


Senior crooks catch the public attention. NHK, a public-service broadcaster, recently aired a programme asking why so many old people have short tempers. It cited an old woman who whacked a young salaryman with her walking stick because he was sitting on a bench at a railway station, shouting, “This is for old people. Move!” Short-sightedness can be even more dangerous: doddery drivers account for 28% of all fatal traffic accidents, up by ten percentage points from a decade ago.

老年人犯罪引起公众的关注。公共媒体机构日本广播协会(NHK)近期播放了一个节目,探究如此多老年人脾气暴躁的问题。在节目中,一位年长的妇女挥舞着拐杖,对一位坐在火车站长椅上的年轻上班族大打出手,并高喊”这是给老年人坐的。走开!“老年人近视引发的问题更加严重,也更危险:在所有致命交通事故中,28%的肇事者为老人,十年前,该比率为10%。


The elderly also make up 12% of the prison population. That is less than their share of the population as a whole (roughly a quarter), but high, again, compared with America, where those over 65 are less than 3% of prisoners. Elderly and often infirm jailbirds are expensive to look after. Earlier this year the government decided to deploy care workers to around half of the country’s 84 prisons.

此外,日本服刑人员总数中,有12%是65岁以上老人,低于比日本老龄人口比例(约为25%),但与美国不到3%的老年服刑人员相比,已是十分之高。要照顾老年人和体弱多病的囚犯,成本高昂。今年年初,日本政府决定为全国84所监狱中的近一半监狱配备护理员。


Nonetheless, with so many silver-haired felons off the streets, Japan remains one of the safest places in the world. Only 996,000 crimes were reported in 2016, compared with 3.7m in France, a country with half as many people.

尽管街头巷尾出现了如此多的老年罪犯,日本仍是全球最安全的国家。2016年,日本共发生99.6万起刑事案件,而在人口总数只有日本一半的法国,刑事案件却有370万起。


编译:周祎

审校:程馨莹

编辑:翻吧君

来源:经济学人


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