Insurance policies are classic plot devices in crime stories and at the center of the new seven-part drama series, "Last Money" (NHK-G, Tues., 10 p.m.). Hideaki Ito plays a corporate insurance investigator named Mukojima, whose job is to check life-insurance claims and ensure they're legitimate.His latest case is a real head-scratcher. A family of three generations goes off a cliff in a car, and the only member who survives is the grandmother. The head of the household, it turns out, had taken out a life insurance policy, but in order to decide who gets the money, Mukojima has to first determine the order in which the people in the car died. His job is made more difficult when a mysterious woman (Reiko Takashima) shows up claiming to be the policy holder's mistress.Table-tennis star Ai Fukuhara is one of Japan's most famous athletes, and has been since she was a little girl. In the past year another young player has threatened to steal her thunder, and she's even younger than Ai-chan was when she first made her mark on the sport. Eleven-year-old Miu Hirano debuted at the age of 9, and last January at the All Japan Table Tennis Championships became the youngest player to rise as high as she did in the singles rankings.Miu is the subject of "NNN Document '11" (Nihon TV, Sept. 18, 12:50 a.m.), which explains how she started at the age of 3 when she joined her mother in a table-tennis class. Her goal is to win a gold medal at the Olympics, and given how young she is, she could win a few.Yamasa: Actress Shinobu Otake stands over the stove stirring a pot of stew. Her daughter, Imalu, wanders over, checks it out and says, "It's different from what you usually make." Otake tells her she's now using Yamasa dashi (soup stock), made from konbu (kelp). They sit down to eat and Otake says, "This is what pleasure is."Yamasa is one of Japan's oldest soy sauce makers, which means its main rival is Kikkoman, and one of Kikkoman's chief advertisement figures is comedian Sanma Akashiya, Otake's ex-husband and Imalu's father. He's conspicuously absent from the home depicted in the Yamasa ad, and not just because he shills for the competition. In his Kikkoman ad he sings, "What's pleasure?" — a question Otake answers in hers. Evidently, pleasure is having a meal without Sanma around.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Probation union slams proposals
Plans to replace probation programmes with cheaper, untested, privately-run courses will lead to "more crime, more victims and more imprisonment", a probation union has warned.
The Legal Aid, Sentencing and the Punishment of Offenders bill, due to be discussed by MPs this week, will scrap the presumption that offender programmes should be accredited and shown to have an impact on crime and reoffending before they are used, the probation union Napo said.
Under the plans, a magistrate or judge will be able to impose any programme as a condition of a community court order.
Harry Fletcher, the union's assistant general secretary, said the move "opens the door for cheaper, privately-run courses, where there is no evidence that they cut crime".
"The measures contained in the bill are controversial," he said.
"The abolition of the requirement that offenders programmes have to be accredited is extremely worrying. Accredited programmes presently reduce reoffending by up to a third.
"The effect of the bill will, in Napo's view, lead to an increase in imprisonment and reoffending and therefore more victims."
Mr Fletcher added that plans to extend curfews from 12 to 16 hours would make it "virtually impossible for anybody to work", potentially affecting more than 20,000 offenders who are on electronic tags.
A Napo spokesman added that the plans were not about what works or what would reduce offending and protect the public, but instead were "about ideology, reducing the size of the state and the introduction of profit motives".
Monday, September 12, 2011
Crime victims 'being kept in dark'
Victims of crime are being let down so badly by the justice system that they are less likely to report incidents again, a new report has found.
The research, based on official Government data and a new survey of 1,000 crime victims for national charity Victim Support, claims that victims are only being kept adequately updated in around half of all reported cases.
It found that victims hear nothing more from the authorities after reporting crime in about a third of incidents.
It also shows that there is a strong correlation between victims receiving information and reporting crime again, with 43% more likely to do so if they were kept informed.
Javed Khan, chief executive of Victim Support, said: "Time and again victims tell us that they've been kept in the dark by the criminal justice system.
"Lack of contact and information about their case can make them feel uncertain and isolated and worsen the distress caused by the crime itself.
"This not only erodes a victim's confidence in the justice system but as our report suggests, makes it less likely that they will report crime again."
Under the Crown Prosecution Service's Code of Practice for Victims of Crime, victims must be updated monthly about key events in their ongoing case, such as arrests, bail, charges, summons and remand.
Crime fiction: zillionaire's story, serial mystery and more
Crime fiction |
Seattle-area writer Gary Alexander's "Zillionaire" (Gale/Five Star Press, 256 pp., $25.95) is a riot, despite (or because of) its star, Buster Hightower, a not-very-funny stand-up comedian who returns after his lead role in Alexander's 2010 book "Disappeared."
This time out, Buster's girlfriend's distant relative shows up on their doorstep. He's got a line on something strange: a mysterious series of numbers that might lead to a fabulous legacy left by a Japanese — wait for it — zillion-aire.
Throw in a sleazy dentist with money problems and a brain-freezingly complex code needed to crack the secret. Then add a crisis with Buster's classic Cadillac: It's been kidnapped and held for ransom. (Bits and pieces are being mailed back until Buster does the right thing.) Needless to say, high jinks ensue.
Gary Alexander will sign "Zillionaire" at noon Oct. 8 at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, 117 Cherry St. (206-587-5737 or www.seattlemystery.com).
Run out right now and buy "No Rest for the Dead" (Simon & Schuster, 256 pp., $24.99), not just because it's a terrific book but because it's for a good cause: Brother-and-sister editors Andrew and Lamia Gulli are donating all profits to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
The book is a group effort: Starting with a simple premise (a nasty art curator's murdered body turns up in a Berlin museum), 26 writers contribute a chapter each. And there are some heavy hitters here, including David Baldacci, Jeffery Deaver, Lisa Scottoline, Kathy Reichs, Alexander McCall Smith and our own J.A. Jance. Big fun and good deeds at the same time. What more do you need?
Stella Rimington — that's Dame Stella Rimington to us — was the first woman director general of the British Security Service (MI5), so she knows what she's talking about when it comes to espionage fiction. In retirement, she's published a string of books about agent Liz Carlyle, the latest and most accomplished being "Rip Tide" (Bloomsbury, 384 pp., $25).
Told in unadorned and unfussy prose, "Rip Tide" mixes piracy on the high seas with hot-button political and religious issues. It appears that someone is giving pirate groups off the coast of Somalia inside knowledge about which containerships are loaded with valuable medical supplies. And what's with the British-born Muslim man discovered with some pirates when British troops intercept them in the Indian Ocean?
One cautionary note: The book makes frequent and possibly confusing use of the term "Asian," which in England means people of Pakistani or Indian descent.
Medieval Japan, with its strict moral codes, threats of sudden violence and highly structured feudal loyalties, is rich ground for mystery fiction. Laura Joh Rowland's excellent series about an imperial spy, Sano Ichiro, makes full use of this setting.
Rowland skillfully avoids the slightly patronizing tone of other novelists who have written about that time and place (I'm looking at you, James Clavell). Rowland also makes sure that her extensive research blends unobtrusively into her stories.
"The Ronin's Mistress" (Minotaur, 336 pp., $24.99) takes as its inspiration a true-life revenge tale that has become an icon of Japanese literature: the carefully plotted murder by 47 ronin (masterless samurai) of the aristocrat who caused their master's death. Sano, beset by rivals and court intrigue, is assigned to see if the defiant samurai should be forced to commit ritual suicide.
Finally: Best of luck to Seattleite Michael Gruber, whose espionage novel "The Good Son" has been shortlisted for the prestigious Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers' Association. The winner will be announced Oct. 11.
Adam Woog's column on crime and mystery fiction appears on the second Sunday of the month in The Seattle Times.
What crime did the PSM 6 commit?
When a government deems it politically expedient to lock up good men and women, it is high time we voted it out, writes Rani Rasiah. She goes on to provide a glimpse of one of these women, Sarasvathy Muthu, now freed but facing charges in court on 10 October 2011.
Sarasvathy Muthu“I have everything except my freedom,” said Choo Chon Kai, one of the six detained under the EO, to family members during a 15-minute visit. ‘Everything’ was, in truth, nothing much, as the six were deprived of all creature comforts, having been locked up in a 2.0m by 2.5m cell in solitary confinement in a police remand centre.
The lights were on in the cells day and night and one-way mirrors ensured there was no privacy.
Yet the six – Saras, Letchu, Chon Kai, Babu, Sugu and Kumar – did not complain bitterly about their physical circumstances. This was not surprising as in their day-to-day lives, they have chosen to lead simple lives. They have decided to drop out of the rat race, and devote themselves to the struggle for a better deal for the downtrodden and for a more just society.
Political detainee Saras
Sarasvathy Muthu or Saras as she is called began her involvement in community organising when she joined the progressive Young Christian Workers at the age of 17. When she started working, the plight of oppressed factory workers drove her to organise unions so that they could be in a stronger bargaining position.
In the early 1990s, Saras and others founded Alaigal, a Perak-based community organisation, which throughout its years of existence, shook the Perak state government by defying and challenging amongst others, unjust orders that would render marginalised communities homeless or deprive them of their livelihood.
A community organiser par excellence, Saras has organised countless communities in various sectors – plantation workers, urban pioneers (squatters), farmers and workers – educating them on their rights and empowering them to struggle as a united community against whoever oppressed them. Many area struggles have been won using people’s power as a weapon.
Saras was also a founder member of Parti Sosialis Malaysia, a party that was formed in 1998 by a group of community organisations that felt the need for elected representatives of their own in parliament and in
state assemblies. Saras is the Deputy Chairperson of PSM and contested in the 2008 general elections in the state seat of Jelapang.
She lost but as is typical of PSM candidates, she has not been a loser. Known for her hard work, tenacity and courage, she has serviced the badly gerrymandered Jelapang constituency remarkably well. For her outstanding performance as a social activist, Saras was selected as the ‘Best Female Social Activist’ by the Semparuthi Publications team in 2011.
The stories of the other five PSM members in detention are not unlike that of Saras. Sugu and Letchu opted to commit their time and energy to the struggle to improve the lives of the marginalised since the time they were teenagers. Both of them decided to settle for humble occupations that would allow them the flexibility that is so important in community and party work. Sugu taps rubber part of the week on a small family plot,
and earns extra money doing wiring.
What is the crime of these principled men and woman, who call themselves socialists?
Is it a crime to devote one’s life to the service of humankind without any expectation of gain or reward? Is it wrong to criticise the government, and educate the rakyat on the host of anti-people policies of the BN government – the GST, the amendments to the labour law, the non-implementation of a minimum wage, the withdrawal of subsidies, the signing of the FTA, the privatisation of health care and education, and the use of draconian laws such as the ISA?
When rapacious developers want to flatten the homes of the poor in the name of development, these six have not stood idly by. When vegetable and livestock farmers are threatened with eviction, these six have defended the land along with the farmers.
They have been arrested many times and locked up and then released for defending people’s right to their homes and livelihood, and the right to greater social justice for 70 per cent of Malaysians.
The six, aged 25 to 57 – Babu, Chon Kai, Saras, Sugu, Letchu and Kumar – merely believe that the wealth of the country should be more equitably distributed so that every child can grow up to realise his/her potential, and not have his/her development held back by the lack of access to basic needs. They think it is not okay for the government to merely show in its statistics that the income of 34 per cent of Malaysian workers is below the poverty line.
What is the crime in all these?
When a government deems it politically expedient to lock up good men and women, it is high time we voted it out.
Fatimah Joseph, a kindergarten teacher, is a member of the Sg Siput PSM branch.
BBC bosses order new crime drama
BBC1 is turning to Victorian crime drama with a new series set in Jack The Ripper's East End - just months after the controller said there had been "too much crime" on the station.
Channel bosses have ordered an eight-part series set in 1889, during the aftermath of the unsolved Whitechapel murders.
Earlier this year BBC1 controller Danny Cohen said BBC1 was at risk of having too many male detectives and crime.
Ripper Street will be set in the Metropolitan Police's H Division, the section of the force keeping order on the crime-ridden streets targeted by the notorious serial killer.
It has been created by writer Richard Warlow who has worked on series such as Mistresses and Waking The Dead. The BBC said the drama examines "the characters trying to recover from the Ripper's legacy".
BBC1 controller Danny Cohen said: "Ripper Street is a gripping new drama for BBC1.
"Set against the backdrop of a fevered historical London, I believe it has the quality and intensity to be a hit with BBC One viewers."
Filming will begin in the spring.
Cohen made his comments about crime dramas as he justified his decision to axe Italian detective drama Zen after three episodes.
He said in April: "I felt that we risked having too many male detectives and arguably we have had maybe too much crime."
Hope, horror in crime mire
bilderboxEinbrecher dringt in ein Haus ein.If the 2010/11 crime statistics, released by Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa this week are to be believed, major crime in the country is going down. However, this contrasts with the spike in violent and brutal hijackings in Durban in recent weeks that have left victims traumatised (see accompanying stories). While 2.1 million serious crimes were registered in 2010/2011, the figure is down by 50 400 cases this year. There was a decrease in the number of major crimes such as murder, attempted murder, common assault and sexual crimes. But there was an increase in theft from motor vehicles from 120 862 in 2009/10 to 123 091 in 2010/11. Drug-related crimes also rose from 134 840 to 150 673 reported incidents. In KwaZulu-Natal, various categories of crime saw a dip, including murder, sexual crimes, attempted murder and common assault. However, reported incidents of theft from motor vehicles rose from from 14 221 in 2009/10 to 15 945 in 2010/11. Drug-related crime in the province was also up from 28 693 to 32 457 in 2010/11. While the number of murders in KZN decreased it was still the third-highest figure in the country. But many South Africans still have to live with the horror of crime. A young Bluff resident, who asked not to be named, was recently stopped at a robot and forced to drive to a dead end. Waiting in the bush at the end of the road, was a man with two packets who jumped into the car and made the victim drive 20km to a spot where another two men were waiting with a van and a water drum. They put him in the empty drum, closed the lid and placed it in the back of the van. He thought he wouldn’t survive because he battled to breathe. After driving for several hours, the hijackers pulled over and lifted the lid. Not realising he was in Umtata, he ran off. He flagged down passing motorists, who helped him call his family. Still traumatised, he says crime statistics don’t reflect the impact of such incidents. The figures have drawn mixed responses from industry experts. The head of the Institute of Security Studies Crime and Justice Programme, Gareth Newham, said most South Africans thought the statistics were a reflection of police performance, which was not true. “Most of the crimes committed are interpersonal – the people who commit the crimes know their victims and sometimes the police can do little to help. The decrease has nothing to do with the police or their management strategy; it has everything to do with preventative measures by social workers and the confiscation of illegal firearms. “These factors could have contributed to the decline because the police only intervene in organised crimes,” said Newham. Security Association of South Africa president Jenny Reid said the decline was good news, but we should aim for a further decline. Too many crimes were still not being reported, she said. “While some have cited the World Cup as one reason for the decrease, it involved only two months out of 12, so we can’t really base the statistics on that,” she said. Sergeant Stephen Clark, the Westville SAPS representative for the Westville Community Police Forum (CPF), confirmed there had been a spike in crime in the Highway area in the past two weeks but said it had decreased overall in Westville. “Armed robberies and car hijackings have stabilised, but residential break-ins have increased substantially,” he said Haden Searles, who chairs Durban North CPF, said although crime had decreased in Durban North, theft from motor vehicles had increased through jamming of cloned car remote devices. “Theft of motor vehicles, especially on the road and not in a secure area, is a problem. House break-ins have fallen, but this is seasonal with more occurrences in winter.” Kevin Harvey, who chairs the Westville CPF, said murders and assaults in the area had decreased. The hijack and murder of an elderly woman in the north was an exception. “But residential break-ins have increased and this is of concern. The CPF tries to ensure residents are taking the necessary precautions.” Fani Ngubane, who chairs the Pinetown CPF, said robberies and burglaries at homes were the biggest problem areas, with hijacking and murders not so pressing. Dianne Kohler Barnard, DA Shadow Minister of Police, welcomed the trend, but said the decrease had to be seen in the context of the World Cup which had been relatively crime-free. She said this indicated the tactics used against crime in that period should be made part of the policing structure. The drug problem in KZN was reaching the level of a pandemic, she said, especially since the closure of the specialised narcotics unit. “The almost 10.2 percent increase in drug-related crimes are linked to violent and vicious crimes. This province has a reputation of shooting and killing first – more so than any other.” Criminals were now also likely to shoot first and ask questions later, she said, with criminals getting bigger guns and becoming more vicious. “Civilians are being caught in the crossfire. “Of concern is the large number of police firearms lost and stolen each year. Responding to questions, the Auditor-General admitted 3 226 SAPS firearms were lost and stolen in 2009/10 and only 233 were recovered. A total of 1 335 SAPS firearms were lost and stolen in 2010/11 and only 160 were recovered. “These are huge numbers, with the cost of replacing these firearms running into millions, and if the guns fall into criminals hands lives are lost,” she said. Julie Berg of the University of Cape Town Centre for Criminology was sceptical of the decline because she believed a lot of factors were not considered. “How do we reconcile the statistics with the human experience? Some crimes are not reported and the police are increasingly relying on mortuaries for statistics, and we question that.” Clinical psychologist James Sharrat said trauma could have a lifelong impact. “The first year is the most difficult, but the sooner professional help is obtained, the quicker they can deal with the trauma and get on with their lives.” - Additional reporting by Devaksha Moodley. - Tribune
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