Filicide and fatal abuse in Japan, 1994–2005: Temporal trends and regional distribution

To describe the recent filicide features in Japan, data were collected from newspaper databases between 1994 and 2005 and compared with several official statistics. From this dataset, 933 cases and 1084 victims under age 15 were identified. Fatal abuse cases were most prevalent (309 cases, or 33.1%), followed by filicide–suicide cases (303, or 32.5%) and unwanted child cases (225, or 24.1%). Infants under the age of one were most at risk (filicide rate: 2.72 per 100,000 for the same aged infants). Annual filicide numbers showed an upward trend between 1994 and 2001 and the average filicide rate per year was 0.42 per 100,000 for children under age 15. Both the number of cases over the period and the filicide rate per year by prefecture ranged widely. Furthermore, the annual filicide rates over the period were strongly correlated with both suicide rates and unemployment rates for the general population (r = .884 and .926, respectively; p < .001 for both). The measure of filicide per region and the predominating category in a prefecture provides direction for filicide prevention. Result suggests that recent socioeconomic situations have a significant effect on not only filicide–suicide but also the overall filicide rate in Japan.