Number of reported crimes in Japan falls to post-war low

Yet cases of bank transfer or phone scams surged by 13.1 per cent

Police officers patrol a street on 5 July, 2008 in Tokyo, Japan (Kiyoshi Ota/Getty Images)

The number of crimes reported in Japan during 2015 hit the lowest level since the end of World War II, according to the country's National Police Agency.

The agency said last year's figure of 1,099,048 crimes sits below 1973's previous record of 1,190,549, citing an increase in security cameras as well as volunteer patrols on the streets.

A reduction in thefts accounted for 80 per cent of the decrease, the Japan Times reported, falling from 897,259 to 807,605.

The total number of murder cases decreased by 11.5 per cent to 933, falling below 1,000 a year for the second time on record.

While fraud cases dropped by 5 per cent to 39,439, cases of bank transfer or phone scams surged by 13.1 per cent to 12,729. The total damage from all fraud cases came to ¥76 billion, according to Japan News.

The country's crime clearance rate, the percentage of cases solved by police, was 32.5 per cent in 2015. The figure has hovered around the 30 per cent mark for the past 10 years, far short of the 60 per cent recorded until the late 1980s, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

Crime committed by juveniles decreased 19.1 per cent, while crime committed by people aged 65 or older increased 0.9 per cent.

In July, government data revealed crime was higher among the country's elderly population than it was among teenagers.

The rise in elderly crime has been directly related to the "Silver Tsunami" in Japan's aging and shrinking population.