On Christmas Day last year, a 17-year-old boy was sent to prison by the Saitama District Court for the murder of his maternal grandparents. Prosecutors demanded an indefinite sentence, but the court gave him 15 years after taking the boy's "environment" into consideration.

The environment was certainly extraordinary. The boy's parents divorced when he was in fourth grade, after which he lived with his mother and her boyfriend, moving from Saitama to Shizuoka Prefecture, where he attended school for two months and then stopped going. For extended periods of time they were homeless. When they had money they stayed in cheap hotels, but otherwise they slept in parks.

The youth was often beaten by the boyfriend and his mother did nothing to stop it. After she gave birth to a girl, the boyfriend disappeared and she would send her son to relatives to borrow money, telling them he needed it for school, even though he never went. When he turned 16 he got a job painting houses, but the mother spent much of the money he made at game arcades. Her demands became more insistent, and he was constantly taking advances on his wages. Their debts increased.