White paper on crime 2010 Part7/Chapter4/Section1/1
The status of occurrence of serious offenses, with a focus on points that require special attention, is as follows.
The number of reported cases involving serious offenses (See Fig. 7-1-1-1) has been on a decreasing trend since around 2003 for each type of offense but still remains at basically the same level as that 20 years ago, apart from robbery. That for robbery was at the high level of approximately three times that 20 years ago.
Examining the number of cleared cases by the relationship between the suspect and the victim (See Fig. 7-1-1-4 and Fig. 7-1-1-5) revealed that for homicide the number of infanticides decreased but the number of homicide against parents remarkably increased, and overall homicide against relatives is increasing. In recent years the relative rate (percentage of cases in which the victim was related to the suspects to total cleared cases) has been around 50%. For injury causing death, the relative rate has also been around 50%. Offenses against relatives most commonly took place due to anger/violent emotion for both homicide and injury causing death. In addition, many offenders committed homicide against relatives due to exhaustion from nursing care/nurturing while many committed injury causing death due to abuse/punishment (See Table 7-2-1-1-2). For rape, the number of cases against relatives has also been increasing, although the number is still small (See Fig. 7-1-1-4). For arson the relative rate was around 30% while cases against non-acquaintances also exceeded one third of total cleared cases (See Fig. 7-1-1-4).
By age group the number of cleared persons aged 50 or older was large for homicide and arson, while the number of cleared persons aged 65 or older has been significantly increasing in recent years (See Fig. 7-1-1-9).
The number of Boryokudan members, etc. (regular members or quasi-members of Boryokudan) cleared for serious offenses has been on a decreasing trend in recent years but that for robbery has remained at a high level (See Fig. 7-1-1-11). By type of offense the percentage of Boryokudan members, etc. to total cleared persons was high for homicide at 20% and robbery at 19% (See Table 3-2-2-2).