Culture,Philosophy and Crime: The Japanese Experience

As societies modernize, one usually sees rapidly increasing rates of conventional crime. Contrary to this trend, Japan has experienced patterns that have either declined or remained basically horizontal during this process. In fact, this Oriental society is one of the few nations that has not had a positive development/crime correlation. Expanding on a societal explanatory approach suggested by Reischauer, this article describes how cultural traditions within Japan may explain this phenomenon, how their dark side of crime is also related to these cultural features, and how Implications for research are specified.