Posted on 02/26/2020 4:28:30 PM PST by rktman
At a halfway house in Hiroshima - for criminals who are being released from jail back into the community - 69-year-old Toshio Takata tells me he broke the law because he was poor. He wanted somewhere to live free of charge, even if it was behind bars.
"I reached pension age and then I ran out of money. So it occurred to me - perhaps I could live for free if I lived in jail," he says.
"So I took a bicycle and rode it to the police station and told the guy there: 'Look, I took this.'"
The plan worked. This was Toshio's first offence, committed when he was 62, but Japanese courts treat petty theft seriously, so it was enough to get him a one-year sentence.
Small, slender, and with a tendency to giggle, Toshio looks nothing like a habitual criminal, much less someone who'd threaten women with knives. But after he was released from his first sentence, that's exactly what he did.
"I went to a park and just threatened them. I wasn't intending to do any harm. I just showed the knife to them hoping one of them would call the police. One did."
(Excerpt) Read more at getpocket.com ...
I have a guy that does odd jobs for me that has done this - gets busted for just that certain crime that gets him in jail for 3 months in the winter.
It’s a different world than mine, thank God.
I know that’s my future.
You’re moving to Japan? I didn’t even know you spoke Japanese. :-)
That’s an old O. Henry short story.
I would expect the Japanese Gov. to update the laws about who can be imprisoned, for what and for how long.
Hopefully, they built affordable housing for these elders as well. This happens in the states too. It’s rarely spoken about at this stage.
I saw an excellent mini documentary the other night on dying alone in Japan. I’ll post it on this thread. They said many old people are estranged from families for one reason or the other. Some Japanese are forgetting about their elders unlike what used to be the norm.
It’s true that Toshio is alone in the world. His parents are dead, and he has lost contact with two older brothers, who don’t answer his calls. He has also lost contact with his two ex-wives, both of whom he divorced, and his three children.
But "Pig Laws" are mean to thieves who are black.
Not much of a plan. Why not steal as much money as possible? If you don’t get caught.... PARTY! If you do get caught, so what.?
From the description of vid:
Lonely deaths, or kodokoshi, are on the rise in Japan. Thousands of elderly people die in their homes without anyone knowing. Sometimes corpses remain undiscovered for weeks or even months, so companies devoted to cleaning up the homes of the dead are increasingly in demand.
RTD’s Artyom Somov went to Japan to ask elderly citizens if they’re afraid of solitude. He also meets a man working in the macabre kodokoshi industry to find out how he feels about cleaning up after the dead.
Lord knows winter in some places is a hell of a lot worse than jail
No it's not. When the medical bills get too high they kick your butt out. It's called Compassionate Release.
There are cities in Japan where the predominant population is seniors, more typically Women. Societal breakdown as caring for elders which used to be the norm is now out of “fashion”
On the other side there are a growing number of younger folks who are so afraid to appear in public versus online that they have become acute agoraphobics, afraid to even step outside of where they live and interact with people on a personal level lest they not match up to their synthetic personality online
Really tragic
It’s called, Going In Style.
https://youtu.be/hcdTN5soeQw
Do prisons bill Medicare for inmates 65 and over?
Not that I know. Vets get released straight into a VA hospital.
A strange and tragic parallel universe.
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