That a report like the following makes it into the newspaper says quite a lot about crime rate in Japan:
Popular novelist Mariko Hayashi had her handbag stolen by a street snatcher in central Tokyo, police said.
Hayashi, 51, was on her way home in Shibuya-ku, on Sunday, when a man snatched her handbag and fled. The handbag contained her purse holding 90,000 yen.
The handbag was found on that night in Tokyo's Suginami-ku, but the cash was missing from it, police said.
Seems that in Japan there are no crimes more serious than handbags stolem from novelists. Good for the Japanese.
And indeed I always felt very safe in Japan, quite the contrary to Peru.