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TOKYO - The number of crimes against children, including murders and sexual assaults, declined slightly in Japan last year, but remained at disturbingly high levels, the Justice Ministry said on Tuesday.
A series of attacks on young children late last year, including the killings of three schoolgirls in less than a month, rocked society and shocked many parents into keeping a closer eye on their kids, fearing they too could become victims of crime.
"The number of violent crimes against children has promoted great concern in society and is something that must be given great attention," the Justice Ministry said its 2006 annual report on crime.
In one of the most high-profile cases last year, first-year elementary school student Airi Kinoshita was sexually assaulted and strangled by a Peruvian immigrant, who then dumped her body in a cardboard box close to his apartment.
The case horrified Japan, where relatively low crime rates mean young children have long been allowed to make their way home from school alone. Jose Torres Yagi was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime in July.
Overall, the number of children under 13 murdered in Japan last year dipped to 105 from 111 in 2004, down from a record 121 hit in 1998 but still one of the highest levels of the last decade.
The number of rape cases involving children was 72, down from 74 the previous year.
Overall crime rates continued to decline for the third consecutive year, with the number of penal code offences known to police falling by 8.8 per cent, to 3,125,216 cases among Japan's 127 million people.
The ministry said it remained concerned by the recidivism rate of sex offenders. Of those released in 1999 and followed for five years, 39.9 per cent were arrested again on some charge.
"This sort of multiple crime continues to be a threat to society," the paper said.
Japanese police last year started holding information on the addresses of those who had served prison terms for sex crimes involving children, prompted by the killing of a 7-year-old girl in 2004 by a man who media said had a criminal record of sex offences against children.
Kaoru Kobayashi, 37, was sentenced to death in September for the kidnapping and murder of Kaede Ariyama, whom he abducted on her way home from school in November 2004. Following that, he took her to his apartment and molested her.
He then drowned her in a bathtub, abandoned her body by the side of a road and sent pictures of the scene to her mother over the girl's mobile phone, according to his indictment.
The Justice Ministry now shares information on child sex offenders with the National Police Agency as a result.
- REUTERS
