Crime Prevention Volunteers in Japan Hit Record 2.77 M.

Tokyo, April 9 (Jiji Press)--A record 2,776,438 volunteers were involved in such crime prevention activities in Japan as protecting children on their way to and from school and raising awareness of fraud risks at the end of 2014, up 1.1 pct from a year earlier, a National Police Agency survey revealed Thursday. The survey covered volunteer groups with five or more members that operate at least once a month. The number of such groups increased 1.0 pct to 47,532, up for the 11th consecutive year. Behind the increases, the NPA sees the impacts on the public of the murder of a six-year-old girl in the western city of Kobe and the abduction and confinement of an 11-year-old girl in Okayama, also western Japan, both in 2014, an official said. The survey pointed to the aging of volunteers. The average age of members came to 60 or higher in 61.6 pct of the volunteer groups surveyed, up 4 percentage points from the level five years ago. Meanwhile, groups with an average age between 40 and 59 accounted for 32.5 pct, down 4.5 points. The NPA separately said it recognized a total of 7,474 volunteers in 199 groups working on cyberspace surveillance and efforts to prevent online crimes as of the end of 2014, sharply up from 3,858 volunteers in 75 groups in April 2013. END