Though the crime rate is reducing in Japan, a lot of elderly people are seeking jail by committing small offences to escape isolation by going in to jail. A report from WFTU is given below:

“The number of elderly prisoners in Japan has quadrupled, even though crime reached record lows in 2016, according to data released yesterday show that elderly people looking for a “home” in prison. A total of 2,498 people over 65 were admitted to prison last year, a figure four times higher than those who were imprisoned in 1997, indicated in the White Paper on crime published by the Ministry of Justice Japan. Of that number, 70.2% were repeat offenders, which shows a complex reality in the Japanese country where older people seek in prison a “home” to escape social isolation and poverty.
Most older prisoners serving sentences in Japanese prisons lacked links with family, friends or neighbors before being hospitalized, according to a study conducted in prisons Nipponese by the lawyer of Keio University (Tokyo) Tatsuya Ota. Low public pensions is the average monthly compensation of 78,000 yen (609 euros) prevent these elderly acquire the services and commodities to survive and lead them to have to find part – time jobs or commit crimes.

However, crime in Japan reached a record low in 2016, when the number of crimes continued to fall until reaching just under a million, which is already the fourteenth consecutive year decline, driven partly by the drop in the number of thefts. These figures are the best that the country has achieved since the postwar period and reveal, according to the report, “significant improvements” in the crime rate.”