NCJ Number
188613
Journal
Crime & Justice International Volume: 17 Issue: 49 Dated: February 2001 Pages: 9-10
Date Published
February 2001
Length
2 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the increase in youth crime in Japan, particularly violent crime, and its relationship to the lifestyle of the hikikomori (those who isolate themselves or refuse to conform to the dominant cultural patterns).
Abstract
Japan is a much more homogeneous society than the United States, such that any person or group that departs from the dominant culture is quickly identified and often negatively labeled. Such is the case with the hikikomori. Those considered to be hikikomori, however, do not choose to be categorized. For many of these individuals, they would prefer to hold regular jobs by day and participate in their divergent lifestyle by night. There are an estimated 50,000 to 1,000,000 hikikomori in Japan. Many experts explain that those hikikomori who resort to violence are not representative of the group at large. Most of the youth, they maintain, simply engage in antisocial behavior without being violent. Nevertheless, the media has been influential in a heightening of fear of hikikomori incidents. Unfortunately, stories of violent attacks waged by those labeled hikikomori number sufficiently high to warrant the public's fear of a crime epidemic by those in this group. Rather than further isolating and placing a "criminal" label on those youth who do not conform to the dominant culture, the challenge for Japanese society may be to develop a more accepting posture toward those youth who prefer alternative lifestyles to the dominant culture and expectations of parents, but have no intention of engaging in violent criminal behavior.