THE French government is bracing for an increase of so-called “grey crimes” as more senior citizens are swapping their gardening gloves and bridge hands for guns and knives.
The French Centre for Strategic Analysis said the criminal system would need to be overhauled to handle the growth in crime by the over-60s, according to an official report leaked today..
Police may require specific training on how to track “grey crime”, and jails would have to be modified to cater for inmates with Alzheimer’s disease and other illnesses, according to French specialists.
“The aging of the population is going to lead to an almost automatic rise in crime by senior citizens,” the report said.
According to official statistics, people over age 60 committed 24,000 crimes in France last year.
The figure will rise to 40,000 a year by 2050 if the trend continues.
The increase could be bigger still, according to Alain Bauer, a criminologist, who said that grey crime would rise along with the health of retirees.
“The fact that people live longer in better health inevitably affects their behaviour,” he said.
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