Re:As crime dries up, Japan’s police hunt for things to do (...
by goobynight on Wednesday July 31, 2019 @11:31AM
(#20575211)
For what it's worth, I wish I even had a single detective working my bicycle theft case. Hell, put an intern on the case just to make me feel like something might happen.
Right now, property crime reports just blatantly go into the void in US cities.
Re:As crime dries up, Japan’s police hunt for things to do (...
by smsm42 on Wednesday July 31, 2019 @06:20PM
(#20579154)
Yes, when I got my bike stolen - in broad daylight, in front of a public place - the response was pretty much "sucks to be you, good luck with the next one, we can take report if you want but don't expect anything happening because it never does".
Multiple detectives investigating a bicycle theft is absurd. This has positively nothing to do with the broken window theory, but instead is exactly what the article talks about which is an overstaffed police force with little to do.
And it doesn't have little to do because Japan is such a cultural gem. It has little to do because Japan is facing a population implosion as the population ages with few children. Youth and young adults are, unsurprisingly, responsible for most crime, and when you have few in that demographic crime drops. No surprise.
[1] It's interesting to think about this in the context of a Japanese person in, say, Canada. They meet with a ridiculous scenario with a ridiculous response, and when vocalizing to a coworker how ridiculous it is they are told that they are a smug foreigner and need to shut the hell up. That would be simply outrageous, and is the sort of thing the worst sort of racist would resort to.