With respect to the 9 types of offenses that are major subjects for the analysis in this special article, robbery, bodily injury, assault, intimidation, extortion, rape, indecent assault, breaking and entering, and destruction of objects (hereinafter referred to as "9 types of violent offenses" in Part 5), the number of reported cases is increasing rapidly in recent years. These offenses also share characteristics in that they are likely to occur around ordinary people in everyday life and they are committed in the form of direct violence perpetrated upon people or objects or disturbance to the peaceful living environment. Furthermore, these offenses are often committed in the situation in which the perpetrator and the victim confront each other fact to face (contact crime). Due to this, these offenses have a serious influence on both the physical and mental states of their victims, including the sense of fear that they feel when being victimized and trauma, which does not disappear but rather remains in their minds. Such influence on victims will also be seen even in the case where the perpetrator and the victim do not confront each other face to face. For instance, in the case of breaking and entering, the victim will not only suffer significant damage to his/her privacy but also feel more uneasy and insecure than confronting the perpetrator face to face due to the lack of information on the perpetrator. This type of offense will also increase anxiety and fear among neighbors of the victim as it makes them feel that they could also become a victim.
  Although the 9 types of violent offenses are significantly increasing, they only account for 7.4 % of the total number of reported penal code offenses. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, these offenses are likely to occur around ordinary people and cause tangible or intangible damage to the physical and mental states of victims, thereby have a possibility of increasing anxiety and fear among people; therefore, from the perspective of maintaining a safe and secure living environment for Japanese people, we must not see the present situation optimistically simply because these offenses only have a small share in the reported penal code offenses. Identifying the trend of the 9 types of violent offenses and analyzing the causes of increase and the social backgrounds thereof will contribute not only to taking effective measures for these offenses and offenders and investigating the cause of each offense but also to taking actions to give relief to individual victims and eliminate anxiety and fear among local residents.
  Homicide, which is a major heinous and serious offense, only accounts for 0.037% of the total number of reported penal code offenses. However, homicide is the most violent offense, causing shocking damage to the victim, the bereaved family of the victim as well as local residents, and attracts public attention because the act of committing homicide itself is heinous and causes serious consequences. For this reason, in order to identify the overall picture and trend of violent offenses, it is essential to work on statistical analysis on homicide in addition to analyzing the trend of the 9 types of violent offense, irrespective of the increase/decrease in the number of reported cases and other statistical data.