“Prison is a place of relaxation and comfort”
Old people dream to go to jail. There to escape the boredom and poverty.
Japanese prisons are becoming more elderly prisoners. Many of them are breaking the law from loneliness, poverty and boredom. The prospect of going to jail does not frighten them, because in the wild even worse. “Ribbon.ru” to find out why this is happening.
“The first shoplifting I made 13 years ago,” says 80-year-old woman serving a sentence in a Japanese prison. She had everything — money, and the family, but it still felt unnecessary.
One day she wandered into the store, got to the counter the book and tried to make her a hollow, but then he fell. “A police officer who interrogated me, was the sweetest person,” says the Japanese. He listened carefully to her, and then patted him on the shoulder and said, “I understand that you are lonely, but don’t do it again”. She seemed to have listened to her for the first time.
She continued to commit petty theft, and eventually landed in jail. There she unexpectedly liked it. “In prison I live better. Always around people, and I’m never alone,” says the woman.
She loved even forced labor in the prison factory, although before has not worked even once in my life — the money her husband allowed not to think about it.
The first period was followed by a second, and now the elderly Japanese woman sitting in third time. “When I came out after the second time, I swore I would never come back, she says. But when it was released, involuntarily homesick for prison.”
The aging prison
Japan is aging faster than any other country in the world. Age 27.3 percent of the population of Japan exceeds 65 years. For comparison, in Russia the elderly only 14 percent, i.e. almost two times less. While in 1960 the share of the elderly population in Japan and in Russia was the same — about six percent.
Prison population grows old even faster. In just ten years the number of elderly people in Japanese prisons grew by seven percent. By 2016 behind bars were 9308 Japanese older than 60 years. This is 19 per cent of prisoners is unprecedented not only for Japan but for other countries.
Japanese correctional institution was faced with another unusual trend. In recent time behind bars more and more often get elderly Japanese women. Before this almost never happened, and now every fifth prisoner for over 60 years. Sometimes — much more.
Prison rules invented for young and healthy people. This creates a sizable problem for older prisoners and for staff. “I have a bad heart, and I often fell down from weakness in the prison shop,” — says 81 year old inmate who is serving a life sentence for a murder committed 60 years ago.
Employees, on whom fell the duties of orderlies and nurses, too, not envy.
According to Satomi Kazuki working as a warden in a women’s prison in Tochigi, she has to deal with prisoners who suffer from incontinence.
“They are shy and they hide underwear, she says. — I tell them to bring it in, I will wash”. Patience enough not to all, so in women’s prisons strong turnover: many quit, not having worked for three years.
“It can not be called comfortable life”
Each institution faced with similar problems, comes out on his own. Prison in the city of Takamatsu took the elderly prisoners the first floor of the three-story building, which was erected in 2010. That from the camera was easy to travel in a wheelchair or on the crutches taken care of still under construction.