The benefits of a low crime rate

You don't have to look at government statistics to know that Japan has a low crime rate - the evidence is right there in front of you. Japan is extraordinarily clean. There is almost no litter (remember littering is still an offence, even in the UK), few fag butts and even very little chewing gum. There is some graffiti but you have to go looking for it. Vending machines are everywhere selling drinks, cigarettes and newspapers. I never saw one with even a hint of vandalism. Trains are free of the litter, graffiti and glass graffiti that commuters in the UK have learnt to treat as a fact of life. At Tokyo airport I saw people leave their bags outside as they went into the loo.

But there is another aspect of Japanese behaviour which I can't help but think is related. It is the extraordinary consideration for others that the Japanese show one another. On trains people don't have mobile phone conversations except in the vestibules. They are asked to keep phones on vibrate and they do. I was never inconvenienced by that annoying tish-tish sound from a Walkman. On station platforms people line up in neat queues by marks on the platform edge. That way there is no unseemly huddle outside the train door.

As I said, I can't help but think that a low crime rate and consideration for others are related. If this is true and human nature is universal it's pretty bad news for the idea of crime and punishment. You can punish people as much as you like but if that basic consideration for others isn't there you will never succeed.

It is also (potentially) rather bad news for my own crime manifesto. My way would be to relegalise guns, relegalise self-defence, relegalise drugs and privatise public space. Oh, and allow the owners of that public (now private) space to impose whatever law they feel like. But Japan seems to do it without any of these things. (Err, I'm not sure about the self-defence bit.)

It's a mystery.