Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
“Please take me home in your patrol car because I don't have enough money for a taxi." “My girlfriend dumped me. What should I do?” “I spotted a big snake in the park. Please capture it.” These are just a few of the “emergency calls” that police receive every day, and which are diverting them from their regular duties.
“Capturing snakes is not our job. How can we act in more serious cases if we are being called out for these sort of cases?” said a Tochigi prefectural police spokesman. According to National Police Agency figures, 950,000 inappropriate emergency calls were received by police nationwide in 2007, up from 880,000 in 2004.
One area in which police are being called to intervene more is domestic disputes. “In the past, police considered domestic disputes as a private family matter and rarely intervened. But domestic violence has become a big problem in society, and we are getting a lot more emergency calls related to it,” said the Tochigi police spokesman. "The problem is that in many cases, it is really not a case of domestic violence, but just an argument or a spiteful neighbor."
One police officer told Shukan Post: “There are people who intentionally make nuisance calls to police. For example, we've had people who called us, complaining that their neighbors were making a terrible noise at night and that they must be fighting. But it turned out that they just wanted to make a bad reputation for their neighhbors because they didn't like them.”
“People who make inappropriate emergency calls are a problem,” said journalist Akihiro Otani. “It goes back to 1999 when the police force started to suffer one scandal after another. Some people just want to vent their anger at the police. For their part, police are conscious of their reputation in the community and have to make every effort to listen to the voices of ordinary citizens on even trivial matters. But things are getting out of hand. Police officials are worried about complaints against them and tend to take a 'nothing-is-wrong' policy' to avoid potential trouble. But I think they should at least take a tougher attitude toward inappropriate emergency calls.” (Translated by Taro Fujimoto)
© Japan Today
33 Comments
Login to comment
wanderlust
"diverting them from their regular duties...."
....which are?
Checking up on bicycles, harrassing foreigners, whilst ignoring motorists illegal parking, speeding, using mobile phones, gropers, right wing mobsters, illegal dumping, noise violations....
....back to kuchi-tomei kin.
Altria
Who am I supposed to call if I see a big snake in the park then?
Police are the only ones with a gun to shoot it.
Kijimuna
As a JT reader I applaud, along with Shukan Post's fine readership, this excellent article for recognizing that domestic disputes loud enough for a call to the police are usually crappy neighbors trying to give others a bad reputation.
flammenwerfer
first morons using ambulances like taxi's and now the childish fools treating the Police like their parents... What is wrong with people?
nutsagain
wanderlust: Right on the money with that one. Excellent.
electric2004
Police are suffering? Don't they have caller ID Display? Just collect the strange calls, and if it exceeds 5 or so, give a written warning to the person.
borscht
How do the police react to a phone call from a hysterical woman who has just been beaten by her husband? Tell her to gaman?
fds
what they really need to do is make obviously frivolous calls to police/emergency services a crime with mandatory jail time and/or fines. the problem is the police will enforce it for about a month and then forget about it.
DeepAir65
This is a global issue and not restricted to Japan - what is up with people these days?
What does infuriate me here is when there is a fire engine, police car or ambulance on a shout people do not move out of the way for them - now that is truly a Japanese trait.
Statistician
Seen it all before in the UK
Next step will be to start narrowing down the number of situations that qualify as 'emergency calls' and so get recorded as 'crimes' - and so count towards an 'improvement' in the crime statistics.
In London I even once had a policemen on the other end of a 999 energency call I was making refuse to log an incident I was phoning up about even as I watched three teenagers running away from a car abandoned in the middle of the road with a broken window because 'there was no hard evidence of a crime in progress (Sir)'
martyman
Tsk Tsk, a public servant complaining about the job they were hired for. Unless it is a nationwide concern with no proactive measures taken, then gomenasai. If the Japanese government creates another city office for nuisance control, I believe they stand a chance on reducing the number of un-important calls. For example a Japan wide publicity campaign to inform the public who to call in case a snake sighting has occurred, or who to call in case an ancient spirit comes unexpectedly to their home, etc.
lipscombe
yeah , they need a character or an idol in guts pose with "lets bad denwa police no" slogan
Cammi
rofl......this article has made me smile
urufuls
Hmm, I've actually done that before, I would have been walking for 2 hours late at night. They really didn't have anything better to do because they were playing 'go'.
At least I can say
chardk1
From the article about the arrested Russian sumo wrestler:
Yeah, when they have to figure out extremely complicated and pressing issues like why a young man would smoke pot (not even relevant to his prosecution), clearly the Japanese public shouldn't be bothering them with their trivial problems.
chardk1
From another JT article today:
The monkey eluded the police, by the way. But heaven forbid people should bother the police with their petty problems, clearly they have enough to do.
Xennon
No Animal Control teams in Jland?
martyman
Stop monkeying around, this is serious business with loose primates terrorizing the city. I am surprized they didn't call in the Keystone Cops to assist in the pursuit of these wild criminals. I wish I had a camera!
noborito
I thought the police were only for asking directions. Do they actually do any work? When ever anything real happens it takes 2 or 3 hundred of them to get anything done.
Triple888
Well they do pay tax and Japan being one of the safest nations on earth police officers should be kept busy at all times; perhaps it's not too much to ask for.
Apsara
Why is it a problem if there is a snake in a park? In most parts of Japan it isn't going to be a poisonous one. I've seen large snakes in parks in various parts of Japan- it never occurred to me that anything needed to be done about it. Leave the snakes alone!
IchyaParadise
They have "cops" here? No way...I thought those guys in uniform were street performers. They just stand there all day like Mimes but no moving...man, I feel dumb.
romulus3
nice one lipscombe
JoiceRojo
It is not the thing that you call for killing snakes, trying to stop a robbery or loud fights in the neighborhood, or even asking directions or rides home when it is really too late. The point is that it shouldn't use the EMERGENCY LINE to do that... In my country, the resources are limited, but there was an article were a significant percentage of emergency calls to the police were pranks or calls for other kind of public service (like solving a possible conflict that may or may not happen). These calls "saturate" the line not giving space to attend the real emergency calls, I believe that this article was aiming at the same spirit.
Smythe
Mind you in Canada on a few occasions I have stopped an RCMP Patrol car to ask directions or best city road/sttreet to be on to a certain street for I do not carry a cellular phone.
Actually I think they were releaved to show their politness to a Cdn citizen & especially a motorcycle rider. For they do tend to pinch us riders & especially one's sportbike's for a bit over the max speed limit we prefer to ride at.
JeromeInJapan
Ring ring ring ring...
"Sumimasen... I heard a man making an inappropriate call can you get him? Arigato"
mindovermatter
What's wrong with this one...? Wasn't it about a year ago some 40 something year old guy (living at home with his mom, I know describes about half the adult Oyaji population) got tired of his ball python, and simply took it to the nearest park and let it go...
And the other one left at the train station...?
Oh yea, JN, just keep ignoring those calls...
Or how about that strange call a few years ago in Osaka, where the two college boys got into a scuffle over a parking spot with some local yakuza, one boy ran to the police and all they did was ask the yakuza guys if they knew where the other kid was...? Of course they said no...
But by that time, they had stuck him in the trunk, and later killed him...
Oh big joke there JN police... Worthless bunch losers....
mindovermatter
No, the JN police, handle all types of investigations related to public safety... Hence this is why they don't have an FAA to investigate plane crashes, Because the JN Police handle everything in this country...
Securities Fraud = JN Police,
Elevator mishap = JN Police,
Train derailment = JN Police,
etc...
And nowhere in this story does it mention that these people were calling the emergency number (119) it simply states too many people are calling the police..
Sorry, No Sympathy for these cops...
Matter of fact if they were properly trained, the second that cop in Akihabara got stabbed, he should have shot that kid with the knife.. His injury wasn't anywhere near life threatening
It would have saved at least 3 people...
3 more people got stabbed and died because that cop either didn't know how or didn't have the right training to do his job...
JoiceRojo
News flash... the title says inappropiate EMERGENCY calls.
I understand that there are things that you have to call the police for,like reporting suspicious behavior,animals where they shouldn't be and others, but for emergency there is a dedicated line and they spend time listening to calls that are not an emergency not giving chance to those real emergencies...
Sidwarwick
I assume an appropriate call for the Japanese would be go something like this: "Come and arrest me. I did it. I admit everyting. I'll sign/put my thumb-print on whatever you want. It's a fair cop."
martyman
I wonder if they have denwa cops on the shinkansen when people use there cells? The sign is universal for no cell phone use.
I will have to get a bit froggy and test it out. Come get me coppers, I'm going to use my cell on the train!
serindipity
Which are what exactly??? Checking bicycle registrations? Napping in the koban? Standing on the street looking intelligent (or attempting to)? Chasing monkeys?
Sarge
"Capturing snakes is not our job."
Absolutely. That's a job for the snake catchers!
seredipity - Daaaayuuuummmmm!