An officer from the local police station routinely checks in on homes dotting Kazumoto Machida*s sleepy village. Most of the residents in the rural community on the western edge of Saitama Prefecture are older, including Machida*s octogenarian parents whom the bachelor lives with.

But since a spate of high-profile robberies made national headlines last year, the policeman has been accompanied by a welfare commissioner and the head of the neighborhood association during his patrols.