Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > Japanese Government Policies in Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology 2001 >Chapter2 Section1.3

According to the National Police Agency's survey on juvenile delinquency, the number of juveniles arrested for criminal offenses in FY2000 declined from the previous fiscal year but still remained at a high level in what police called the fourth wave of juvenile delinquency in the postwar period. Particularly between 1999 and 2000, there was a string of heinous crimes by young people.

  The Present State of the Youth and Policy Measures (White Paper on Youth: 2001 in Japan), compiled by the Cabinet Office, described the recent trend of juvenile delinquency and other problems concerning youth in Japan as follows:

The recent trend of juvenile delinquency is showing an unconventional pattern in that about half (45.5% in 1999) of the juveniles arrested for heinous crimes had no pervious records of committing crimes. There are an increasing number of cases where "ordinary kids," who were regarded by people around them as well-behaved and inconspicuous without showing such early delinquency indications as shoplifting or becoming members of delinquents' groups, abruptly committed serious crimes after their pent-up dissatisfaction or stress was suddenly caused to explode by certain factors.

In recent years, there has been a remarkable rise in crimes that victimize young people. Criminal offenses that victimized youth totaled 352,753 in 2000. Of those offenses, sharp rises were registered particularly in heinous crimes totaling 1,916 cases and violent crimes totaling 23,487 cases. The victims of sexual offenses (rape, indecent assaults) also increased to 5,608 cases.

  It remains intractably hard to accurately gauge the situation of child abuse in Japan. Since FY1990, when child guidance clinics began taking statistics on consultations about child abuse as a separate category of protective care consultations, the number of child abuse cases has risen steadily, shooting up to 11,631 cases in FY1999, a tenfold jump from 1,101 cases in FY1990.

  As for the conceivable reasons and backgrounds to these juvenile problems, the Present State of the Youth and Policy Measures (White Paper on Youth: 2001 in Japan) cited the following: