Instead of Playing Golf, the World's Elderly Are Staging Heists and Robbing Banks

Loneliness and poverty are two factors blamed for increased criminal activity among senior citizens

(Bloomberg.com) - British tabloids were abuzz after a dramatic recent heist in London's Hatton Garden diamond district, as thieves made off with more than £10 million ($15.5 million) in cash and gems from a heavily secured vault. According to one theory, the gang used a contortionist who slithered into the vault. Others held that a thirtysomething criminal genius known as the "King of Diamonds" had masterminded the caper.

But when police arrested nine suspects, the most striking thing about the crew wasn't physical dexterity or villainous brilliance. It was age. The youngest suspect in the case is 42, and most are much older, including two men in their mid-seventies. At a preliminary hearing on May 21, a 74-year-old suspect said he couldn't understand a clerk's questions because he was hard of hearing. A second suspect, 59, walked with a pronounced limp.

Young men still commit a disproportionate share of crimes in most countries. But crime rates among the elderly are rising in Britain and other European and Asian nations, adding a worrisome new dimension to the problem of aging populations.

South Korea reported this month that crimes committed by people 65 and over rose 12.2 percent from 2011 to 2013—including an eye-popping 40 percent increase in violent crime—outstripping a 9.6 percent rise in the country's elderly population during the period. In Japan, crime by people over 65 more than doubled from 2003 to 2013, with elderly people accounting for more shoplifting than teenagers. In the Netherlands, a 2010 study found a sharp rise in arrests and incarceration of elderly people. And in London, police say that arrests of people 65 and over rose 10 percent from March 2009 to March 2014, even as arrests of under-65s fell 24 percent. The number of elderly British prison inmates has been rising at a rate more than three times that of the overall prison population for most of the past decade.

The U.S seems to have escaped the trend: According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the rate of elderly crime among people aged 55 to 65 has decreased since the 1980s. While the population of elderly prison inmates has grown, that mainly reflects longer sentences, especially for drug-related crimes. Full Story