Crime in Japan Ticks Up for 4th Straight Year

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:23 JST, February 12, 2026

The number of reported crimes in 2025 rose 4.9% from the previous year to 774,142, according to crime statistics released by the National Police Agency on Thursday. This marked the fourth straight increase since the figure hit a postwar low in 2021.

Last year saw a surge in property crimes such as so-called special fraud cases and shoplifting of food items, and the number of foreign visitors arrested for committing crimes jumped by 30%.

The number of reported crimes had been steadily declining since peaking at about 2.85 million in 2002. However, the number began increasing in 2022 and last year eclipsed the about 749,000 crimes reported in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted.

Thefts accounted for more than 60% of all offenses, totaling 513,931 cases, a jump of 2.5% from 2024. Although metal thefts, such as stealing copper cable wire, dipped by about 20% from the previous year, cases of precious metals stolen from unoccupied houses quadrupled from five years earlier, according to the statistics.

A spike in shoplifting also pushed the overall figure up. Shoplifting cases rose 7% from 2024 to 105,135. Half of the cases involved food being stolen.

Cases of fraud and similar crimes soared by 25% from the previous year to 77,473. The most common motive for committing fraud was “hardship in daily life,” which was cited in about 40% of cases.

The annual loss caused by scams swelled by 31% to about ¥402.9 billion. Of this amount, losses arising from special fraud cases almost doubled from 2024 to about ¥141.4 billion, according to a provisional figure. Damages arising from investment scams using social networking sites and romance scams in which scammers become close to the victims increased by 40% to about ¥182.7 billion, so the situation remains extremely serious.

The agency believes “tokuryu,” which are anonymous and fluid criminal groups, are repeatedly committing these crimes.

The number of arrests for criminal offenses increased 4.8% to 301,055. Of them, 17,614 were foreign visitors, a jump of 31.4%. According to the agency’s statistics, 550 foreign visitors were arrested for serious crimes such as murder and robbery, an increase of 48 from 2024. The overall arrest rate was 38.9%, the same as the previous year.

In a survey conducted by the agency on 5,000 people aged 15 and older in October 2025, 79.7% of respondents said they thought public safety had “gotten worse” in the past 10 years. This was 3.1 percentage points higher than the figure in the same survey conducted a year earlier. When asked why, 72% of respondents said they felt this way because of hearing about investment scams and “impersonation” scams in which perpetrators target victims by pretending to be their family members over the telephone. Respondents could give multiple answers to the question.

“We’ll respond appropriately to these difficult issues,” an NPA official said.