Japanese Prison: No place like home for the elderly & gaijin
Prisoners top 60,000 for 1st time in over 40 years
Mainichi Shimbun, Nov 5
The number of prisoners in Japan exceeded the 60,000 mark last year for the first time in 43 years, a Justice Ministry report showed Friday. ...
....The number of elderly and foreign prisoners has shown marked increases. At the end of 2003, 6,683 people aged 60 or over were serving prison terms, over 10 times the figure of three decades ago. Elderly people account for about 11 percent of all the inmates, as compared with 2 to 4 percent in the United States, Britain, Germany and France.<