White paper on crime 2012 Part5/Chapter2/Section2/1
In accordance with the Act on Support for Crime Victims, etc. Such as Payment of Crime Victims Benefit (Act No. 36 of 1980), the government compensates the bereaved families of persons killed and victims seriously injured or disabled in criminal acts with crime victim benefits. After taking into consideration the Basic Act on Crime Victims and the Basic Plan for Crime Victims, the requirements for providing the benefits to seriously injured crime victims were then relaxed, the period of the benefit provision extended, and restrictions on providing the benefits when the perpetrator was one of the victim’s relatives relaxed on April 1, 2006. In addition, the system was further enhanced by providing additional amounts of benefits for damage due to absence from work to seriously injured crime victims, and by raising the amount of benefits to be provided to those severely disabled as the aftereffects (grade 1 to 3) and to the bereaved families of the main householder from July 1, 2008, and the reviewed restrictions on providing the benefit to victims of spousal violence were applied from October 1, 2009 (See Appendix 5-1 for the status of the application/payment of crime victim benefits).