Is there a higher rate of violent crime and crime in general in the United States than there is in Japan? Yes, I think that's a safe thing to say.
Japan is the model most often used by advocates of the prohibition of firearms. There is no private ownership of handguns, and among 120 million people there are only a little more than half a million privately owned long guns, including air rifles.
Japan's annual homicide rate has been progressively decreasing for a decade and now stands at 1.2 per 100,000. It is reported that 97% of murders are solved - the highest clearance rate in the world.
Japan is one of the most disciplined nations on earth, with an authoritarian and conformist culture that precludes large scale law-breaking. There are few constraints on police powers, especially with respect to search and seizure. Rates of crimes not usually associated with firearms - rape, mugging and assault, are the lowest in the world and are trifling by European and North American standards. Japanese do not kill each other in large numbers because they are, in all respects, extremely law-abiding people. Interestingly, the current Japanese suicide rate of 21 per 100,000 is double the Canadian rate and almost double the rate in the United States. (this study is from 1992)
Japanese frequently and fervently insist that the U.S. is much more dangerous than Japan, but this is almost always based upon what they hear on the news and the movies that they see. I try to explain that only the most sensational news makes international headlines, and that aside from certain locations, the U.S. is a pretty safe place, and some people understand this.
However, the average Japanese violent crime is a hell of a lot more scary than the average violent crime in America. Although the amounts of crimes in which people shoot each other is really low in Japan, a lot of people are slicing and stabbing their victims over here. It makes sense. If there are no guns to kill people with, then you are left with knives. It takes a different kind of killer to weild an edged weapon and to stab and slash someone to death. In comparison, it's pretty easy to kill with a gun. All you have to do is to aim and squeeze the trigger, and the bullet fills the gap between you and your target, driving itself into a body with its own momentum. If you stand far enough away, you won't get any blood on you. With a knife, it's always up close and personal and involves using muscle work and body movements to penetrate flesh (unless you are throwing it, but how many of us would throw a knife at someone we wanted to kill? if you miss, they could pick up the knife and stab you!). You are guarenteed to get blood on your hands. I imagine that killing up close leaves a greater impression on the murderer because it is an intimate act. The greater the physical distance from the victim, the greater the emotional distance can be.
Two days ago, a little girl in the sixth grade used a box cutter to murder a classmate at Okubo Elementary School (in Nagasaki-ken). Lets take a look at an article from the Daily Yomiuri (Thursday, June 3rd, 2004):
"I slashed at her after getting her to sit on a chair. I wanted to kill her," police sources quoted the girl as saying.
According to Sasebo Police Station and the Sasebo Municipal Board of Education , the sixth-grade girl and Satomi Mitarai, the 12-year-old victim, liket to play with computers and frequently chatted with another friend on their own homepages.
The alleged perpetrator also was quoted as telling the police, "Because her (Satomi's) attitude was cheeky, I called her (to a study room) and slashed her neck.
The police are investigating what Satomi wrote to the alleged assailant on the Internet and their conversations before the attack.
She killed her classmate because she was being flamed (teased in a chatroom)! And this wasn't exactly a crime of passion. She planned it out, lured the girl into a room and had her sit down, clicked the box cutter blade out a few notches, and went for the neck! This evil act is so perverted, so unbelievable that it is hard to comprehend how someone, especially an 11 year old Japanese girl, could do it so casually. According to the article, she's pretty calm about the whole situation and doesn't seem to be exhibiting signs of remorse.
I remember my brother telling me about a case a few years back about a boy attending JHS in Kobe who cut off his friend's head and stuck it on a pole in front of the school (mentioned in this article). Seems like a story out of Lord of the Flies, with something far more scary than a pig's head impaled on a stick. So yes, the United States is a violent place compared to Japan, but I would argue that Japan's brand of violence is, on average, committed by a much more emotionally disturbed individual, as most of the attacks in Japan are done with knives (another article from today reported that a cleaver and hammer were found next to the corpses of two Japanese men yesterday) and other close quater weapons.
Battle Royale doesn't seem so much like fiction anymore.
