Japan’s Prisons Are a Haven for Elderly Women (Many of Whome Are Married Yet Very Lonely)
We have a problem with this in the U.S.A. as well (i.e, adults feeling lonely, including senior citizens), but American churches are fixated on “The Nuclear Family,” rather than doing what the Bible tells them to do: cater to the out-cast and ignored: the widows, the orphans, never-married adults who live alone, and all the rest of those who do NOT fit the “Married with Kids at Home” demographic.
But notice that some of the women described in this article are in fact married – some even have adult children.
So, does marriage make people more godly, and responsible, as American Christians claim? No. Marriage does not make anyone immune from being sinful and committing crimes.
Does being married or having children mean you’re going to have company and never feel lonely all the days of your life? No, because the married mothers in this article say they feel neglected, ignored, and misunderstood, even by their own husbands and children.
(Link): Japan’s Prisons Are a Haven for Elderly Women
Excerpts:
Dec 2018
Lonely seniors are shoplifting in search of the community and stability of jail.
By Shiho Fukada
Every aging society faces distinct challenges. But Japan, with the world’s oldest population (27.3 percent of its citizens are 65 or older, almost twice the share in the U.S.), has been dealing with one it didn’t foresee: senior crime.
Complaints and arrests involving elderly people, and women in particular, are taking place at rates above those of any other demographic group. Almost 1 in 5 women in Japanese prisons is a senior.
Their crimes are usually minor — 9 in 10 senior women who’ve been convicted were found guilty of shoplifting.
Why have so many otherwise law-abiding elderly women resorted to petty theft? Caring for Japanese seniors once fell to families and communities, but that’s changing. From 1980 to 2015, the number of seniors living alone increased more than sixfold, to almost 6 million.
And a 2017 survey by Tokyo’s government found that more than half of seniors caught shoplifting live alone; 40 percent either don’t have family or rarely speak with relatives.
