91–100 of 116 posts
Assisted suicide is a big trend in my country for old people who want to check out. But I know that in many countries that's not an option due to religious beliefs.
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this seems more humanitarian, but doesn't it reduce the disincentive to commit another crime, especially for people from unstable or low-income backgrounds where the prison may be more pleasant than home? Most prisons around the world seem to be far too inhumane but I can't help but wonder if you can go too far in the other direction.
You can't leave. That's the disincentive.
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This seems so strange to me, do they not have cafes where strangers can socialize over a cheap cup of coffee or tea?
>do they not have cafes where strangers can socialize over a cheap cup of coffee or tea? Surely they have. But you have to order something and there is a good change you won't meet anyone of your age. If you come to a free clinic - you don't pay anything and you are immediately surrounded by people of your age (if we are talking about eldery as in this case).
OTOH even regular younger Chinese use IKEA showrooms literally as their living rooms, I can see appeal especially in hot weather
My parents are set to turn 70 next year and I worry so much about their wellbeing when they get older. My dad, in particular, is a generally happy person, but doesn't have many friends. I worry that if my mom passes before him, he's going to have a rough time. I feel guilty because I'm one of those children described in the article who moved to another city to chase economic + social activity.
Total non sequitur but I think there is an opportunity for old folks homes with organized lan/online gaming. Probably still 15-30 years out until games start entering retirement communities in droves but maybe with the right promotion it could get started earlier?
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Are you saying that it's a basic human right to choose whether or not to live, or that it's a right to not have a right to choose? The former would be a very weird statement.
I subscribe to former and I have no ides why you think its weird. The choice of continued concious existence is literally the only real natural right we have.
So you're saying that a human is obligated to live for the maximum span of time possible. Does it still not sound weird?
Rhetorics aside, the power to turn yourself off is very important. Taking away this power has been used throughout history as a means to intensify torture. For someone in suffering, the power to end your life can literaly be the difference between complete powerlessness and empowerment. I've been through a few bouts of depression and can confirm this first-hand.
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Seems like the article caters for it well enough. In relative proportion it's increasing: "In 1997 this age group accounted for about one in 20 convictions but 20 years later the figure had grown to more than one in five - a rate that far outstrips the growth of the over-65s as a proportion of the population"
You missed the next sentence: > nd like Toshio, many of these elderly lawbreakers are repeat offenders. Of the 2,500 over-65s convicted in 2016, more than a third had more than five previous convictions. Those are not unique offenders. Somebody who commits multiple infractions is counted several times.
The graph in the article (1990-2016) looks like the proportion of offences committed by pensioners has roughly risen from 3% to 20% (6.6x increase, maybe 5x if it's 4% to 20%), yet the proportion of over 65s (1990-2016) in Japan has risen from 11.9% to 26.6% (a 2.2x increase)[2].
The source of the BBC graph is in Japanese[3], so I can't get exact figures for the crime and papers I found that did have exact figures only went back as far as 2005.
[1] https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/B06F/production/...
[2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.65UP.TO.ZS?locat...
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In relative proportion its not increasing at all. The graph/data from the Japanese Justice Ministry presented in the article strongly disagrees with you.
Nope it does not. It calculates the number of offenses per age group and it's perfectly NORMAL the percentage increases as the percentage of older people increases as well: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Ja... What you need to prove me I am completely wrong is a subset of 65 years old and older over time, as a single segment, and show me that in that segment there is large increase in perce…
So percentage of population roughly doubled, but in the same time the percentage of convictions quadrupled.
[1] http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/nenkan/pdf/yhyou02.pdf
[2] http://www.ipss.go.jp/site-ad/index_english/esuikei/ppfj2012...
The 1904 O. Henry short story "The Cop and the Anthem"[1][2] tells of a homeless New York City man who commits small crimes, preferring arest and jail to charity handouts. "But to one of Soapy's proud spirit the gifts of charity are encumbered. If not in coin you must pay in humiliation of spirit for every benefit received at the hands of philanthropy. As Caesar had his Brutus, every bed of charity must have its toll…
Sometimes the prison system is bad enough that most people wouldn't resort to this unless it's a life and death situation. So probably nothing of principle (not wanting to take pity money) or not just as a method to save some more money for a few years.
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Nope it does not. It calculates the number of offenses per age group and it's perfectly NORMAL the percentage increases as the percentage of older people increases as well: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/Ja... What you need to prove me I am completely wrong is a subset of 65 years old and older over time, as a single segment, and show me that in that segment there is large increase in perce…
You could have looked up that data yourself to prove the article wrong and shared it rather than just repeatedly commenting that the article sucks. From [1] and [2] the percentage of the population 65+ increased from 15.7% in 1997 to an estimated 28% in 2017. From the article, "In 1997 this age group accounted for about one in 20 convictions but 20 years later the figure had grown to more than one in five". So percen…
> than just repeatedly commenting that the article sucks
The article sucks because it fails to account for several ways to explain the data and jumps right at a conclusion that's pushed by a social narrative.
A relative who is a court interpreter assures me we have exactly the same problem in the UK. The popular approach with her clients here is to smash a car window, then turn themselves in. With temperatures below zero, right now is a particularly busy time.
Given the choice between jail, being outside, or maybe a shelter if you live around a bigger city, I know what i would pick for the winter.
