Senile delinquents

I guess this isn't all that surprising, considering the lack of emphasis on after-school programs following World War II and the subsequent overfocus on rebuilding the country's infrastructure...

Tokyo police will try to rein in a wave of shoplifting by lonely elderly people by involving them in community service, a police spokesman said Thursday.

One out of four elderly shoplifters in the capital blamed their crime on loneliness, Japanese media quoted a police survey as saying. Another 8 percent said it was because they had "no reason to live."

More than half the elderly shoplifters said they had no friends and 40 percent of them lived alone, media said.

"Making shoplifters do volunteer work in the community is effective," the Tokyo Shimbun quoted J.F. Oberlin University professor Akihiro Sakai, head of a police research panel set up to tackle shoplifting, as saying [sic].

"Instead of increased punishment, I hope we can rehabilitate shoplifters with special care."

The article goes on to mention that "Over 20 percent of Japan's population is aged 65 or over, with that figure set to double by 2050."

With the increasing lack of youngsters that Japan's elderly can offer pieces of hard candy to and/or discuss walking back and forth from school in harsh winter conditions, who can really blame them, um, acting out?