NPA: Violent crime by foreigners on the rise in Japan

TOKYO (TR) — A report released on Monday by Japan’s National Police Agency shows that violent crime committed by foreigners is rising. In the first six months of the year, foreigners committed 78 violent crimes in Japan, up 30 percent from the same period in 2014.

The majority of the violent crime was committed in the Kanto area, which includes Tokyo, where there were 54 cases, up from 40 a year earlier, according to the police agency’s report. In the Chubu area, 10 violent crimes were committed, while in Kansai the figure stood at nine.

The number of overall crimes committed by foreigners over that period, however, dropped 11 percent to 6,610, reports the Mainichi Shimbun (Sep. 28), with 4,850 foreigners arrested, a decline of five percent. By country, crimes committed by Vietnamese nationals jumped by 36 percent to 1,145 while those by Chinese dropped 13 percent to 1,075.

The NPA defines violent crimes as those involving murder, robbery, arson or rape. According to the report, foreigners were arrested in 15 murder cases, 39 robberies, five arson attacks and 19 rapes in the first half of the year. The number of foreigners arrested for violent crimes jumped 52 percent to 88. Among the more notable incidents were:

A May murder in which a Korean man strangled his girlfriend, also a Chinese national, in a hotel.

A Thai landscape gardener in Ibaraki Prefecture who murdered his boss and buried him on the premises of the company in May.

A Chinese exchange student who in May killed his Japanese girlfriend and her father with a knife, and also attacked the woman’s mother.

A Chinese woman who stabbed to death her husband, who is also Chinese, during an argument about getting divorced.

A South Korean woman, who was the victim of abuse from her Japanese husband, stabbed him in the left side of the chest in June, leading to a charge of attempted murder.

Despite the rise from last year, the number of violent crimes committed by foreigners is on a general downward trend. In 2005, for example, there were 315 foreigners arrested for such crimes.