THE 74-year-old burglar evaded police in Osaka, Japan’s second-largest city, for eight years. He committed more than 250 burglaries, making off with items worth some ¥30m ($266,500), the police said, before he was finally caught last month. But he has at least told his captors that he is ready to retire.

在日本第二大城市大阪，一位74岁窃贼已在逃八年。警方称，他们于上个月最终将其逮捕归案。根据嫌犯供认，过去他一共犯案超过250起，涉案金额约3000万日元(26.65万美元)。但至少，这位窃贼在被逮后向警方表达了退休之意。

Not all Japan’s elderly criminals are willing to follow suit. New figures from the government show that almost a quarter of criminals aged over 65 reoffend within two years, more than double the rate of those under 29. Some 70% of the wrinkly wrongdoers in prison in 2016 had previously spent time behind bars. And there are ever more of them: in 2015 more than 20% of arrests were of people aged over 65—up from 6% in 2005. In America, in comparison, over-65s account for barely 1% of arrests.

在日本，不是所有老年罪犯都愿意退休的。官方发布的最新数据显示，有近四分之一65岁以上老年罪犯在出狱两年内再次犯罪，再犯罪比率是29岁以下年轻人的两倍多。2016年在狱的老年罪犯中，70%是累犯。并且这个人数还在增多：2015年日本逮捕的嫌疑犯中，65岁以上的老人超过20%。十年前的2005年，该比率只有6%。相比之下，在美国，该比率只有1%。

The majority of crimes the grey-haired commit are petty, such as theft and shoplifting. Analysts reckon it is a sign of poverty, which is relatively widespread among the old (by the government’s count, 13.6% of households headed by someone over 65 are poor, compared with 9.9% for the population as a whole). Sociologists believe that loneliness and boredom spur crime too.

多数老年人犯罪都较轻，如偷盗、入店行窃。分析人士认为，这是贫困所致，因为在日本，越来越多的老年人正变得贫困（根据日本政府统计，在以65岁以上老人为户主的家庭中，有13.6%的为贫困家庭，而日本全国贫困家庭比率为9.9%）。社会学者认为，孤独感和对生活的厌倦也是犯罪率上升的原因。

Senior crooks catch the public attention. NHK, a public-service broadcaster, recently aired a programme asking why so many old people have short tempers. It cited an old woman who whacked a young salaryman with her walking stick because he was sitting on a bench at a railway station, shouting, “This is for old people. Move!” Short-sightedness can be even more dangerous: doddery drivers account for 28% of all fatal traffic accidents, up by ten percentage points from a decade ago.

老年人犯罪引起公众的关注。公共媒体机构日本广播协会（NHK）近期播放了一个节目，探究如此多老年人脾气暴躁的问题。在节目中，一位年长的妇女挥舞着拐杖，对一位坐在火车站长椅上的年轻上班族大打出手，并高喊”这是给老年人坐的。走开！“老年人近视引发的问题更加严重，也更危险：在所有致命交通事故中，28%的肇事者为老人，十年前，该比率为10%。

The elderly also make up 12% of the prison population. That is less than their share of the population as a whole (roughly a quarter), but high, again, compared with America, where those over 65 are less than 3% of prisoners. Elderly and often infirm jailbirds are expensive to look after. Earlier this year the government decided to deploy care workers to around half of the country’s 84 prisons.

此外，日本服刑人员总数中，有12%是65岁以上老人，低于比日本老龄人口比例（约为25%），但与美国不到3%的老年服刑人员相比，已是十分之高。要照顾老年人和体弱多病的囚犯，成本高昂。今年年初，日本政府决定为全国84所监狱中的近一半监狱配备护理员。

Nonetheless, with so many silver-haired felons off the streets, Japan remains one of the safest places in the world. Only 996,000 crimes were reported in 2016, compared with 3.7m in France, a country with half as many people.

尽管街头巷尾出现了如此多的老年罪犯，日本仍是全球最安全的国家。2016年，日本共发生99.6万起刑事案件，而在人口总数只有日本一半的法国，刑事案件却有370万起。

编译：周祎

审校：程馨莹

编辑：翻吧君

来源：经济学人