The number of reported penal code offenses has been more or less consistently increasing since 1975. It has been recording new postwar highs for five consecutive years since 1996, and the year-on-year rate of increase has also been rising rapidly from 1.2% to 2.1%, 6.8%, 7.9%, and 12.1%. The number of reported penal code offenses increased by 1,584,144 during the period between 1974 and 2000. Among these increased offenses, 1,118,011 (70.6%) were due to the increase in the number of reported cases of larceny, whose rate of increase was 110.3% during this period.