Japan
| Author | George Kurian |
| Pages | 525-535 |
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Official country name: Japan (Nihon or Nippon)
Capital: Tokyo
Geographic description: Archipelago in eastern Asia that includes four main islands—Hokkaidō, Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū—stretching in an arc from north to south between the North Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan
Population: 127,417,244 (est. 2005)
In 1871 Japan's newly established government organized the nation's first civil police force, modeling it along continental European lines. It was used for maintaining order and putting down internal disturbances. While the Tokyo Police Department eventually emerged as the model, it was Yokohama that had the first police department. Because Yokohama had many English expatriates, its police department was based on the English model of organization: drill and weaponry.
The police function was moved in 1874 from the Ministry of Justice to the Ministry of Home Affairs, where it remained until 1947. After the 1880s the police developed into a force through which the government extended its control nationwide. Police officers served "primarily as roving guardians of public morality, working with local leaders." They acted as nonspecialist civil administrators, disseminating official measures, thereby facilitating unification and modernization. In rural areas especially they were held in high esteem and accorded the same mixture of fear and respect as the village headman and local schoolmaster. Their increasing involvement in political affairs became one of the foundations on which the twentieth-century authoritarian state was erected.
The centralized police system steadily acquired new responsibilities until it controlled almost all aspects of daily life, including fire prevention and mediation of labor disputes. The system regulated public health, business, factories, and construction, and issued permits and licenses. After 1937 police directed business activities for the war effort, mobilized labor, and controlled transportation. Special Higher Police were created to regulate motion pictures, political meetings, and election campaigns. Military police operating under the army and navy aided the police in limiting proscribed political activity.
After Japan's surrender in 1945, occupation authorities retained the prewar police structure until a new system could be implemented. The Police Law passed by the Diet decentralized the police system (against the wishes of the
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Japanese who contended that a strong centralized police force was needed to deal with postwar unrest). It established approximately 1,600 independent municipal forces and a national rural police organized by prefectures. Civilian control was assured by placing the police under the jurisdiction of public safety commissions controlled by a National Public Safety Commission in the Office of the Prime Minister. The Home Ministry was abolished and the police were stripped of their responsibility for fire protection, public health, and other administrative tasks.
The decentralized system was soon found to be unwieldy, inefficient, and expensive. It did not facilitate exchange of information among forces or their coordinated employment in cases involving more than one jurisdiction. Small municipalities could not support police departments and local police easily slipped under the influence of community bosses and gangsters.
When the bulk of the U.S. occupation forces were transferred to Korea, the 75,000-man National Police Force was formed to back up the ordinary police during civil disturbances. As the pressure for a centralized system mounted, the 1947 Police Law was amended in 1951 to allow smaller communities to merge with the National Rural Police; most opted to do so. Under the 1954 Police Law a final restructuring created an even more centralized system in which local police forces were organized by prefectures under a National Police Agency.
The 1954 law, still in effect in 2003, was designed to preserve the strong points of the postwar system, particularly those measures ensuring civilian control and political neutrality, while rectifying proven organizational defects. The Public Safety Commission was retained. State responsibility for maintaining public order was clarified to include coordination of national and local efforts, centralization of police communications, information and record-keeping facilities, and administration of national standards regarding training, uniforms, pay, rank, and promotion. Rural and municipal forces were abolished and integrated into prefectural forces that were allotted responsibility for basic police matters. Officials and inspectors in various ministries and agencies continue to exercise special police functions assigned to them in the 1947 Police Law.
The National Public Safety Commission is the body with specific authority over all arms of law enforcement. It guarantees the neutrality of the police by insulating it from political pressure and ensuring democratic protocols in police administration. The commission's prime function is the supervision of the National Police Agency. It has the authority to appoint or dismiss senior police officers. The commission consists of a chairman—who holds the rank of a minister of state—and five members appointed by the prime minister with the consent of both houses of the Diet. The commission operates independently of the cabinet, but liaison and coordination with the cabinet are facilitated by the chairman's membership of that body.
As the central coordinating body for the entire police system, the National Police Agency determines overall standards and policies, although detailed direction of operations is left to the lower echelons. It also controls entrance standards and training. In times of national emergency or large-scale disaster it is authorized to take direct control of prefectural police forces. The agency is headed by a commissioner general who is appointed by the National Public Safety Commission with the approval of the prime minister. The agency's central office includes a secretariat with sections for finance, administrative measures and legislation, and procurement and distribution of police equipment.
The National Police Agency has five internal divisions:
The Police Administration Bureau is concerned with police personnel, education, welfare, training, and unit inspections.
The Criminal Investigation Bureau is charged with research statistics and the investigation of nationally important and international cases. The bureau's safety department is responsible for crime prevention, juvenile delinquency, and pollution control. In addition, the division surveyed, formulated, and recommended legislation pertaining to firearms, explosives, food, drugs, and narcotics.
The Communications Bureau supervises police communications systems.
The Traffic Bureau is responsible for licensing drivers, enforcing traffic safety laws, and controlling and regulating traffic. Intensive traffic safety and driver education campaigns are run at both the national and prefectural levels. A Superhighway Supervising Division deals with the special conditions on the nation's growing system of express highways.
The Security Bureau formulates security control policies for the nation and supervises their execution. It conducts research regarding equipment and tactics used in suppressing riots and oversees and coordinates activities of the riot police. The Security Bureau is also responsible for security intelligence on foreigners in Japan, radical political groups, violations of the Alien Registration Law, and administration of the Entry and Exit Control Law. It is also concerned with the implementation of security policies during national emergencies, including such disasters as fires, floods, and earthquakes.
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The National Police Agency maintains seven regional bureaus, each responsible for an area consisting of several prefectures. Metropolitan Tokyo and the island of Hokkaidō are excluded from the jurisdictions of the regional bureaus and are run more autonomously than other local forces, the former because of its urban nature and the latter because of its special geography. The National Police Agency maintains police communications divisions in these two areas to handle any necessary coordination between national and local forces.
The ranks in the police force, in descending order, are:
Senior Officers:
Commissioner General of the National Police Agency
Superintendent General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department
Superintendent Supervisor (keishikan)
Chief Superintendent (keishicho)
Middle Ranks:
Superintendent (keishi)
Inspector (keibu)
Assistant Inspector (keibuho)
Sergeant (junsabucho)
Junior Ranks:
Senior Constable (junsacho)
Constable (junsa)
Senior officers over the rank of chief superintendent are given the same salary and allowance as regular public service personnel, while officers below that rank are covered by a compensation system based on three factors: seniority, rank, and education. All police officers receive automatic increases in salary every year, resulting in the doubling of base salary every twenty years. But the annual rate of increase declines progressively from 5 percent in the initial years to 1 percent after...
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