Is Japan a well-governed, well-policed society? The government is perpetually in the spotlight -- readers must make up their own minds concerning it. As to the police, Shukan Jitsuwa (May 6) sums them this way: “They’re too weak, and they’ll kill you!”
Weakness and lethality are less incompatible than they might seem. The classic example of police impotence is the March 2007 murder of English teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker -- nine officers converging on the scene somehow let the suspect slip through their fingers. He remains at large more than two years later.
Other unsolved cases come to mind -- the murder in 2000 of a Setagaya, Tokyo family of four; the 2005 fatal stabbing of a six-year-old girl in Tochigi Prefecture. Possibly the police are weak in the sense of being shorthanded. Nationwide, Shukan Jitsuwa says, there are some 250,000 officers -- one for every 500 citizens, as against one for every 350 in the U.S. and one for every 280 in France.
Then there’s technology, in which domain the police don’t always have the best of it anymore. The bane of police existence is the ubiquitous camera-equipped cell phone. The first thing a savvy suspect does on being approached by an officer is whip out a cell phone. The officer pursues the matter at the risk of having everything said, done and insinuated broadcast globally. Some websites specialize in this sort of broadcast. Citing one episode in particular seen online, Shukan Jitsuwa says the officer -- whose name it declines to use, though the name appears on the video when the officer flashes his credentials -- used language that “comes pretty close to intimidation,” but “in the end gave up the attempt to question the suspect and left the scene.”
Stymied here, some police officers make up for it there. Last year, says an operator of a “deriheru” facility (“deriheru" stands for “delivery health” and refers to a sort of sexual dispatch service), police organized a series of anti-yakuza lectures and put the word out that owners of restaurants and ero-entertainment establishments were expected to attend. Those who didn’t, police allegedly warned, might find themselves subject to the sort of investigation that adheres with chafing closeness to the letter of the law. The lectures were naturally well attended, and the theme was the necessity and the means of severing all ties with the yakuza.
So far so good. Shortly afterwards, the "deriheru" operator who is Shukan Jitsuwa’s source found himself obliged to renew a business license. The formalities launched, the operator says, he received a visit that very night from a police officer.
“What could I do?” he laments. “I had to set him up with a girl…”
Which suggests that in some cases at least, the police know how to get results.
© Japan Today
17 Comments
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sharky1
It is coming to the point where the police have to recruit from a pool of less than desirable applicants to find police officers. Nobody wants to be a police officer in Japan. Like nursing, they may have to solicit foreigners for law enforcement. (In which case the Japanese public would have to learn the word "FREEZE!!!".)
tkoind2
I'll say it again. If real criminals ever truly grasp just how vulnerable Japan is, things will be very bad. My guess is that they are currently discouraged by the Yaks and not the police. Dethrone the Yaks and it may well invite in a lot less savory enemies of the public.
Hiring better cops will help. But they will need better leadership too.
biglittleman
I thought Triads were dethroning the Yaks?
I personally, do need to be quicker on the draw with my cellphone. It will reduce the number of stops by the police because I am foreign and non-white.
When people stop confessing to crimes and more media attention starts making them look like clowns then the police force will step their game up.
thepro
lol, tabloid articles
gogogo
Police use oldskool scare tactics in Japan, they try to rule from a power position and not as a helpful law enforcement officer, why do you think they drive around with their lights flashing everywhere... and now the parking police do it as well.
lurker
the police won't improve their investigation techniques until the courts demand it. as long as judges rubber-stamp guilty verdicts at a 99.9% rate based solely on single-person accusations and backroom confession tactics, there is no incentive for improvement.
blackbagger
You have to remember the attitude to work in Japan when dealing with cops. People who are career employees in Japan try to do their work diligently for the most part, but temp and part time workers don't, and they usually bring a "who gives a shit" attitude to work. Most cops on the street are not on the career track, so it only makes sense in Japan that they have a slack-ass attitude that involves them only doing just enough work not to get fired.
nath
Police here are wimps. So when you pull your cell phone out, do you call a recording service? Making a movie would be crazy.
knowitall
Here is the video if anyone cares. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5imHkP7IyGI Police language is inappropriate, but the video is heavily edited (everything said by the person filming is removed, and the things said by the police are looped).
DeepAir65
the police are almost as weak as this article
sharky1
knowitall...looked at the video...J Cops are acting like yaks. The person in the video obviously did not commit a crime, but refused to tell the police his name. That really made the J Cops angry, but they DO NOT have the right to ask for identity unless you are a suspect.
DS
I think a lot of cops join the force here for reasons different from home. The police force is seen as just another civic worker type job- decent salary, good job security, retirement benefits. They dont join up over love of justice or the desire to help crime victims. I think this drives both their attitude and incompetence.
biglittleman
Yelnats,
Making a movie isn't crazy especially when your gaijin word has little weight against the Japanese word in a court of law.
The camera program I have on my Iphone records up to an hour of quality picture (around 50mb-150mb .mov format) immediately give me the option to upload to a website after I stop recording.
It is always good to have your back covered. It is just smart.
pawatan
Shukan Jitsuwa is the Japanese equivalent of Weekly World News.
Badge213
Sorry but crimes simply do not get solved in 1-2 hours like you see on television and movies. It takes time, years, sometimes decades before a break comes and a case gets solved. Well not decades in Japan because of retarded statute of limitations, but generally speaking.
MeanRingo
"It takes time, years, sometimes decades before a break comes and a case gets solved." That's because the j-cops keep letting the suspect go.
Elbuda Mexicano
I know the Japanese, and hey, if I were a J cop, I would want to get a few perks like this guy who gets his "deriheru" for free. Better than being a perv on trains right? Most J cops are not as bad or as stupid as people in this forum make them out to be, just go with the flow and make sure you don't have any drugs on you!