With the volume favored by candidates' loudspeaker cars, it can be difficult to tell what issues they are addressing in the campaign leading up to Sunday's election for the House of Representatives. Both the ruling and opposition parties are engaging in the usual name-calling and sloganeering and not giving more than superficial attention to some of the main concerns of potential voters. One of these is the rising tide of juvenile violence that parents, school authorities and the police all seem powerless to control.
A number of heinous incidents this year have all involved 17-year-olds. But as each day's news brings a fresh report of yet another case of youthful criminal behavior, the age level of the perpetrators has dropped to as low as 15 or even 14. Meanwhile, all the political parties are mainly concentrating on the idea of lowering the age at which young people legally become adults to 18 from the present 20. Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, campaigning nationwide for the Liberal Democratic Party and its partners in the governing coalition, is having some success in controlling his tendency to make provocative statements that embroil him in instant controversy. He is putting the emphasis in stump speeches on reducing the age at which minors can be tried in criminal courts for serious offenses from 16 to 14.
This appears to be what all the parties have in mind, in the wake of the public's disappointment at the failure of the regular Diet session, which ended June 2, not only to pass but even to discuss the widely heralded bill aimed at revising the Juvenile Law to better deal with the increase in youthful crimes of violence. As a result, the bill was scrapped.