Japan has often prided itself on its orderly, low-crime society, but cracks in that image are widening amid rising car thefts and home intrusions fuelled by export markets and public complacency.
At a seminar in May on car theft held by the Aichi prefectural police in central Japan, a man in his fifties listened intently – he was twice targeted in the past.
When he woke up one morning in 2011, his prized Toyota Land Cruiser had vanished. Then, one night in 2015, he found a bicycle blocking his entrance, making it difficult to open the door. His car was still there, but a large square hole had been made in the body. The internal wiring had been burned out, resulting in repairs costing more than 100,000 yen (US$640).
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According to provisional data from the National Police Agency, the number of car thefts from January to June this year reached 3,821, up 29.2 per cent from a year earlier.
Aichi prefecture, the heartland of Toyota Motor, recorded the highest figure with 639 cases, a 50.4 per cent increase from the same period last year. Saitama, near Tokyo, with 479 cases, was up 14.6 per cent, and Kanagawa, with 396 cases, was up 66.4 per cent.
Some prefectures also saw significant increases, such as Shizuoka, the birthplace of Honda Motor, and also in central Japan, with 165 cases, 6.6 times the previous figure, and Nagano with 63 cases, 2.9 times higher.