Crimes & Cases

Major criminal cases examined through court records, contemporaneous reporting, and the social conditions that produced them.

A criminal case leaves a paper trail: indictments, judgments, official reviews, and the reporting that followed. This section reads those records to explain what happened, what was established in court, and what the case revealed about the conditions around it.

Editorial scope

What this section examines

The court record

What court records and contemporaneous reporting establish.

How cases unfolded

How major cases unfolded and were understood at the time.

Social conditions

What social conditions form the context around each case.

Published investigations

A wide pedestrian underpass in a Japanese railway station in the early evening, photographed on a long exposure so that the people walking through it appear only as soft, half-transparent streaks. No individual figure is sharp and no face, clothing detail or bag can be identified. The tiled floor is scuffed and slightly uneven, with a shallow puddle reflecting light near the left wall. A run of fluorescent strips crosses the ceiling, one of them dimmer than the rest. The walls are plain tile with one repaired panel in a mismatched shade, and there is no signage, advertisement or lettering of any kind anywhere in the frame. Strong overhead light falls away toward the far end of the passage, which is almost dark, and a single warm reflection from a stairwell out of frame on the right lands on the wall.

Crimes & Cases

Crime Involving Foreign Nationals in Japan

Police cleared 25,480 cases involving foreign nationals in 2025, against 47,865 at the 2005 peak. The count rose three years running, while the ratio to the reference population fell by almost half.

Sep 7, 2026

A small single-occupancy room in a plain institution, photographed from the doorway in the late afternoon. An elderly man sits on the floor with his back to the camera, facing a low wooden desk against the far wall. He wears an unmarked light grey-blue cotton work uniform, his back stooped and his hair short and white, and his face is entirely out of view. On the desk are a plastic cup and a few paperbacks laid flat so that no title can be read. A shelf above the desk holds a folded change of clothes, and a cloth cap hangs from a hook on the wall. A futon and a thin blanket are folded neatly on the tatami to the left. A window set high on the right wall, above head height and divided by thin metal glazing bars, throws a bright rectangle of low daylight across the matting, where a pair of reading glasses and a folded towel lie on the floor. One panel of the tatami is worn paler than the rest, in the place where someone habitually sits. Nobody else is present.

Crimes & Cases

How Many Elderly People Are in Japanese Prisons?

Japan held 5,085 sentenced prisoners aged 65 and over at the end of 2024, down from 5,624 in 2020. A second official table says 2,049. Both are correct, and they answer different questions. What the surveys asked about why, and what they never asked.

Sep 5, 2026

An empty examination room in a Japanese institution, photographed from the doorway before the day's work. A wide stainless steel table stands dry and bare in the middle of the room, tilted slightly toward a drain, with a surgical lamp folded back and switched off above it. In the foreground a scratched steel trolley carries a box of unopened gloves, a metal clipboard with the form face down, a folded measuring tape, a small camera on a short tripod with the lens cap on, and a hand torch. A floor scale stands to the left, a closed steel cabinet with unlabelled drawers behind. Pale green tiles run to waist height, a heavy door with a small square window is shut, and a wall clock reads a few minutes past seven. Nobody is present and nothing is on the table.

Crimes & Cases

How Many Bodies Does Japan Autopsy?

Japanese police handled 204,562 bodies in 2025 and autopsied 9.9 per cent of them. The rate fell because the caseload grew, not because autopsies did. A 2011 police report proposed 20 per cent.

Sep 1, 2026

A photograph of the entrance hall of a Japanese house in the late afternoon, empty of people. On a low wooden telephone stand sits a cream-coloured cordless telephone with its handset lifted out of the cradle and lying beside it, its coiled cord hanging over the edge of the stand. Around the telephone are a spiral notepad with a ballpoint pen laid across it, a pair of reading glasses folded closed, a shallow dish holding keys and a cylindrical seal case, and a lace mat. Behind the stand a shoe cupboard carries a folded newspaper, slippers are arranged in pairs on the step up into the house, and a frosted glass front door lets in flat grey daylight. No people are present and no text is legible anywhere. AI-generated photo illustration; not a photograph of any real house, case or person.

Crimes & Cases

Is Crime Rising in Japan?

Recorded crime has risen four years running and passed its pre-pandemic level. The growth is almost all fraud, the biggest single method is impersonating a police officer, and the age group reporting it most often is people in their thirties.

Aug 21, 2026

A photograph of the edge of a small Japanese country town in the late afternoon. A narrow asphalt farm road runs away from the camera on the left, its surface cracked and patched with tar, with no guardrail. Beside it a concrete-lined irrigation channel about a metre wide holds shallow standing water with patches of green algae and a small rusted metal sluice gate. Beyond the channel lie rice paddies at mid-growth, a bent galvanised fence panel, a black plastic irrigation pipe, concrete utility poles carrying bundled cables, a faded blue tarpaulin folded over a low concrete block wall, a corrugated iron shed, and small houses with grey tiled roofs. No people are present. AI-generated photo illustration; not a photograph of any real place, case or person.

Crimes & Cases

How Many People Go Missing in Japan?

Japanese police took 82,563 missing person reports in 2024. Half of them were found the same day, the single largest cause is dementia, and the rules tell the officer who finds you not to phone the family that reported you.

Aug 19, 2026

A photograph of a narrow residential back street in a Japanese town on an overcast morning, closed off across its width by plain striped barrier tape strung between two folding stands. Beyond the tape the street is empty: cracked asphalt, a low concrete block wall, a rusted bicycle, a drinks vending machine, grey utility poles carrying bundled cables, and small tiled-roof houses pressed close together. Two figures in dark trousers and pale shirts stand just inside the tape with their backs to the camera, one writing on a clipboard, the other looking away down the street; no faces and no insignia are visible. A folded blue plastic sheet lies on the ground beside them. AI-generated photo illustration; not a photograph of any real place, case or person.

Crimes & Cases

How Many Murders Go Unsolved in Japan?

Japan is said to solve 99 percent of its murders. In 2021 the official rate was 101 percent, and the police explain why it can exceed 100. Its most famous killing is not in that figure at all.

Aug 18, 2026

A photograph of the main debating chamber of a Japanese parliament, taken from behind and slightly above the speaking rostrum. In the foreground a man in a dark navy suit stands at an ornately carved dark wood rostrum with both hands resting on it and papers open in front of him, two slim microphones angled toward him; he is seen from directly behind, so only the back of his head and his shoulders are visible and no face can be seen. Beyond the rostrum, tiers of polished wooden desks and dark green upholstered seats curve away into the chamber, occupied by seated figures too distant and too dimly lit for any features to be made out. AI-generated photo illustration; not a photograph of any real person, sitting or chamber.

Crimes & Cases

Why Was Shinzo Abe Assassinated?

A homemade gun, twenty-five seconds, and four bodyguards who did not recognize the sound. What Japan's own investigation found, from Japanese primary sources.

Aug 2, 2026

Crimes & Cases

What this section examines

The court record

How cases unfolded

Social conditions

Published investigations

Crime Involving Foreign Nationals in Japan

How Many Elderly People Are in Japanese Prisons?

How Many Bodies Does Japan Autopsy?

Is Crime Rising in Japan?

How Many People Go Missing in Japan?

How Many Murders Go Unsolved in Japan?

Why Was Shinzo Abe Assassinated?

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