Crime Number of foreign detainees in Japan declines 40% over 20 years

I hope that Takaichi, Onoda, and the Sanseito top brass read the memo.


The number of foreign nationals detained by police in Japan during the five years to 2025 fell 40% from the peak recorded two decades earlier, an analysis of police data showed on Saturday. The decline came even as the foreign resident population nearly doubled over the same period. Police processed 56,706 foreign nationals between 2021 and 2025, down from 93,899 recorded between 2001 and 2005, according to crime statistics released by the National Police Agency. Detentions dropped by roughly half in 14 of Japan's 47 prefectures.

Xenophobic posts on social media have claimed that Japan's growing foreign population is worsening public safety. But with foreign residents nearly doubling from 2.01 million to 3.95 million over the past two decades, the proportion involved in crime has declined. Enforcement cases involving foreign nationals, excluding permanent residents and U.S. military personnel, fell in 40 prefectures between the two five-year periods. Nagano Prefecture saw the largest drop at 73.2 percent from 1,679 to 450. Tokushima, Ehime, Wakayama, and Fukushima prefectures also recorded steep declines. By absolute numbers, Tokyo saw a decrease of 22,344 cases, Kanagawa 3,358, and Shizuoka 2,241.

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Despite a rise in foreign arrivals, the NPA data show no clear link to a deterioration in public safety. In single-year figures, nationwide detentions of foreign nationals increased 5% in 2025 from a year earlier to 12,777, marking a third straight annual rise. Including Japanese nationals, more than 600,000 people a year were detained for Penal Code offences in the early 1950s. The figure fell to the 300,000 range in the early 2000s and has hovered at around 200,000 in recent years. Authorities attribute the long-term decline to community patrols, wider use of security cameras and sustained crackdowns on organised crime.

I assume the government will be cracking down on misinformation on social media about foreigners making the country unsafe, as they recently promised they would about other Japan-related misinformation.