The ratio of elderly former inmates who returned to prison within two years of being released in 2015 rose 2.8 percent compared with a year earlier, reaching 23.2 percent, with the figure remaining higher than for younger generations, a government report showed Friday.
Nearly a quarter of former prisoners aged 65 or older were imprisoned again by the end of 2016 after committing a fresh crime, while the overall ratio for former inmates of all ages dropped 0.6 point to 18.0 percent, the government white paper on crime showed.
As the government aims to reduce the overall ratio to 16 percent or lower by 2021, it needs to implement effective measures to prevent the elderly population from recommitting crimes.
With many elderly inmates having no place to return to after release, as their relations with families have become distant, the government called for community-based support for them in its measures to prevent recidivism adopted in July last year.
The Justice Ministry believes a change of perception toward former prisoners among the general public is key to preventing them from reoffending.
According to a survey conducted by the government in 2013, about 60 percent of people said they would like to support former inmates but only 20 percent of them said they were willing to actually meet them and provide continuous support.
The number of former inmates who have been hired also has not grown, although more companies are registered now as cooperative employees that can hire people who came out of prison.
In 2015, a total of 23,523 inmates were released, of which 4,225 returned to prison within two years. In younger generations, the ratio was 18.1 percent among those aged 30 and 64 and 11.1 percent among those aged 29 or younger.
Among the crimes freshly committed by former prisoners, theft accounted for 23.2 percent, followed by violations of drug control law at 19.2 percent, injury and assault at 16.2 percent and fraud at 13.6 percent.
While the number of overall inmates has been declining since its peak in 2006, that of elderly prisoners has been on the rise.
A total of 2,498 elderly offenders were imprisoned in 2016, about a 4.2-fold jump from 1997, while 70.2 percent of them were incarcerated for the second time or more.
"Introducing employment opportunities to former elderly inmates is very difficult, and it is rather important to give them some place to stay. We are hoping for the involvement of local governments, by providing empty apartment rooms for example," said Tetsuya Fujimoto, a professor emeritus on criminology at Chuo University.
