According to data from Japan's National Police Agency, the number of crimes recorded by police fell 18% to less than 615,000, down from almost 750,000 in 2019. This was the largest drop ever recorded.
The police said that there may have been fewer crimes because more people were staying home due to the coronavirus. Japan declared a national state of emergency because of the coronavirus in April, and in May, the number of street crimes — such as steeling purses or bicycles — had fallen 43% compared to May, 2019.
However, 2020 was the worst year on record for cybercrime, with a 4% increase compared to 2019. There was also a 51% increase in cases of money being stolen from ATMs using fake or stolen cash cards.
The most crimes were recorded in Tokyo, Osaka and Saitama precision, with almost one-third of all of the country's crimes reported across these three areas. The fewest crimes — just 1,814 — were recorded in Tottori precision, which is also the precision with the smallest population.
Japan's crime rate peaked in 2002, when more than 2.8 million were reported.
In the US, which has about two and a half times the population of Japan, more than 8.1 million crimes were recorded by police in 2019, the most recent year for which data is available.
