Natural-Born Killers?

In Japan, a crime wave leads to finger pointing at a class of psychologically troubled, antisocial teens

Crime is the one thing Japan was always happy to admit was best made in America. But a teen killing spree is starting to give the lie to the idea that Japan is preternaturally immune from violence. Last week a 15-year-old boy on southern Japan's Kyushu Island slipped into a neighbor's house after dark and attacked six slumbering family members with a knife one by one, killing three. "Oh, no, not again," said Mikiko Takahashi, 46, the mother of two boys. "Our society must be out of order."

While U.S. crime rates have dropped dramatically over the past decade, Japan's are...

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