As Japan Ages, Prisons Adapt to Going Gray NORIMITSU ONISHI | The New York Times | 03 November 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/03/world/asia/03japan.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&emc=th In the prison's brightly lighted workroom here, 47 inmates sat behind long tables and quietly performed their chores. Grasping some pink checkered fabric, No. 303 unhurriedly started making a pair of knit slippers. Some seats away, No. 335 gently threaded gray envelopes with white string. Up front, No. 229 was gluing together corrugated cardboard pads, and his stack rose steadily, though slowly. Not the hard prison labor you might expect, but at an average age of 74 with the oldest at 88 these were not typical inmates. Work was kept light, and if any felt ill, they could lie down nearby on a tatami mat. Prescription drugs, wheeled walkers and a stretcher were also kept on hand, as well as a box of "discreet, underwearlike" adult diapers. "In our workshop for the elderly, we definitely receive preferential treatment," said one 76-year-old, who works six hours a day, or two hours less than younger inmates with more strenuous jobs. "In general, you know, the conditions are much, much more severe." With one of the world's most rapidly aging societies, Japan is confronting a sharp increase in the number of older criminals and prisoners. Japanese 65 and over now make up the fastest-growing group of criminals. The prison population is aging in the United States, too, but that is a result mostly of long mandatory sentences and restrictive parole practices. In Japan, by contrast, the rise is being driven by crime, mostly nonviolent. >From 2000 to 2006, the number of older criminals soared by 160 percent, to 46,637, from 17,942, according to Japan's National Police Agency. Shoplifting accounted for 54 percent of the total in 2006 and petty theft for 23 percent. As a result, penitentiaries are struggling to adapt environments designed with the young in mind to a lawbreaking population that is fragile physically and often mentally. If work programs, toilets, cafeteria menus and health services are changing, so are smaller things in the prison landscape. Older convicts are exempted from marching in formation in some prisons. On New Year's Day, rice cakes are cut into tiny pieces so they won't become stuck in aging throats. Here in western Japan, Onomichi Prison, a small facility with a special ward for older inmates, who make up 22 percent of the prison's population, is in the vanguard in dealing with this new problem. But recent visits to two large penitentiaries, one maximum security and the other minimum, underscored the more deep-rooted problems associated with the increase in older prisoners. A recent Justice Ministry report said that older people were increasingly turning to crime out of poverty and isolation, suggesting a breakdown in traditional family and community ties. With nowhere else to go, more of the older inmates serve out their full sentences, instead of being released on parole like younger prisoners. What is more, recidivism is higher among the older inmates. "There are some elderly who are afraid of going back into society," said Takashi Hayashi, vice director of Onomichi Prison. "If they stay in prison, everything's taken care of. There are examples of elderly who've left prison, used up what money they had, then were arrested after shoplifting at a convenience store. They'd made up their minds to go back to prison." While the main reason behind the explosion in graying lawbreakers is the rapid aging of Japan's population, the rates have far outpaced the increase of older people in the general population. Between 2000 and 2006, while the total population of Japanese 60 and over rose by 17 percent, inmates of the same age group swelled by 87 percent. In the country's 74 prisons, the proportion of older inmates rose to 12.3 percent in 2006 from 9.3 percent in 2000, while the share of those in their 20s declined and in other age groups remained flat. Japan's rates are much higher than those in the West. America's prisons where those 55 years and over are categorized as elderly are also graying. But such prisoners accounted for only 4.6 percent of the total prison population in the United States in 2005, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. It is not clear how much the graying of the population has added to the costs of running Japan's prisons. But officials said health care costs presented a particular burden. In Fuchu Prison in suburban Tokyo, a maximum-security facility and the country's largest and oldest prison, four nurses look after older inmates with ailments like high blood pressure and diabetes, and with psychological problems. An increasing number with more serious illnesses are hospitalized outside the prison, requiring guards, said Kenji Sawada, an official at Fuchu, where 17 percent of the inmates are 60 and over. Here in Onomichi, the ward for older inmates was built in the mid- 1980s, long before the boom in the older population. Since then, officials have tried to handle the flood of older prisoners through "trial and error," Mr. Hayashi, the vice director, said. In the workroom, adjustable chairs were brought in two years ago. In the locker room, names were added below inmates' identification numbers, which they tended to forget. On a recent visit, dietary restrictions had been posted on a signboard: 5 inmates required bite- size meals; 12 were on low-sodium diets, which meant they could have no dumplings and soy sauce only if it was low-sodium. A handrail ran through the middle of the corridor in the residential wing. On either side were small private cells, each with a tatami floor, a futon, a television, a toilet, a sink and a large suitcase for personal possessions. "Hard of hearing," read a sign on one door. On another, leading to the cell of an inmate with dementia, a sign instructed prison workers to give him medication before every meal "even if he did not request it." "The elderly tend to be stubborn and don't get along with others," Mr. Hayashi said. "So to avoid problems, we give them priority in assigning private rooms." A 71-year-old inmate, a first-time offender serving four years for mugging an old woman to feed a gambling habit, said he had found prison life "much better than expected." In his one year here, he said, he had witnessed only two quarrels, both over food. "It sounds strange, but we're all old folks in here," he said. "I'm old, too, and we're all pretty quiet." The 76-year-old, who said the older inmates received "preferential treatment" in working, was serving six years for larceny, his fourth time in prison. In his five years here, he said, he had seen some inmates come back two or three times. "`You're back?' I'd ask, and they'd say, `Just let me rest here for a while,'" he said. "I guess most of them were having a hard time finding their next meal, so they got caught shoplifting or ran off without paying for a meal." Mr. Hayashi described a "vicious circle" that often sends older people back to prison: Once outside, they cannot find work; without work or a guarantor, they cannot rent an apartment. "This is not a society that lets them stand on their own two feet," he said. Compounding their difficulties is Japan's traditionally unforgiving attitude toward ex-convicts, said Hideo Nemoto, an official at Shizuoka Prison west of Tokyo, for first-time offenders. Relatives usually sever ties, so many inmates never receive visitors. In addition, welfare benefits are difficult to obtain; nursing homes are scarce and not a viable option for ex-convicts. Against that backdrop, prison life which, in Japan, means spotless surroundings largely free of the violence in American prisons may seem the lesser of evils. "There are worries that prisons could become a sort of social welfare facility for the elderly," Mr. Nemoto said. Still, inmates interviewed said that stress accompanied aging in prison. In Shizuoka, a 72-year-old first-timer was serving four years for killing his terminally ill wife. Unlike the older inmates in Onomichi Prison, those in Shizuoka are placed in cells with inmates of various ages. He was strong enough to work eight hours a day coating auto parts with oil. But other older people were having a rough time, he said. In Fuchu, a white-haired, hard-of-hearing 77-year-old lifelong pickpocket was serving four years, his 17th time in prison since 1945. Though he had spent more than half his adult life behind bars, he said he found this term particularly hard. There were little things. The prison's centrally controlled television channel showed mostly youth-oriented music programs. He and his cellmates longed to watch samurai dramas and baseball games. The occupants of his 14-man cell were all frail. Unable to navigate the stairs to the workroom below, they sat on the tatami floor in their room before low tables and made plastic hangers. At night, they put away the tables and spread futons on the floor. "We're all in bad shape," he said, adding that only 3 of the 14 received visitors. Inside the room, the men avoided talking about the future. They talked instead about their greatest fear, of dying inside, the way one cellmate had a couple of years earlier and the way nearly 20 men do every year inside this prison. Death outside would perhaps redeem life inside. "I've already seen several die, you know, inside here," the 77-year- old pickpocket said. "Everyone says he doesn't want to die in here. No way. I don't want to die in prison."
