Paper short abstract:

Recently, Japan has been tackling the increase in crimes committed by the seniors. This research focuses on the narratives of three elderly female ex-offenders, who began their criminal career after 65 and it aims to elucidate how they reconstruct their crime spree, imprisonment, and reintegration.

Paper long abstract:

Recently, the significant increase in crimes committed by seniors has begun to receive attention in Japan. The rate of crime committed by women over the age of 65 reached its peak in 2015, almost five times higher than the numbers in 1992, according to the annual report published by the Justice Ministry (2019). Although Japanese officials justify this tendency with the aging society, the same trend is not present in other rapidly aging countries such as Germany, where the official elderly crime rate is four times lower in comparison. Previous studies in this field in Japan have been predominantly quantitative studies focusing on male offenders and fail to include the issue from the offenders' perspective. This study focuses on the narratives of three elderly female ex-offenders on probation, who began their criminal career (petty crime) after the age of 65. This research attempts to shed light on how they perceive and reinterpret their encounter of the crime spree, imprisonment, as well as their reintegration process back to society.

Despite the argument that several types of offenses (e.g., prostitution and petty crime) are historically more common among female offenders, it is undeniable that crime has a severe stigmatizing effect for women. Previous studies have repeatedly shown that women tend to take a passive approach and describe themselves in terms of normative femininity, while they are reflecting and reconstructing their crime, even for brutal murder charges. This study established that the participants indeed chose conforming narratives whilst reconstructing their stories of crime spree and reintegration. Moreover, their stories revealed insights on the various obstacles of daily life many senior women are facing in Japan, such as poverty, social insecurity, absence of care, and isolation.