| Japanese Cops, Keeping the Peace | ||
| This article is taken from a
Japanese magazine called jcult. The author tells to us about the life of
a Japanese cop. There are two power groups in Japanese society who usually let the Gaijin (foreginer) glide through life like the invisible man - the yakuza and the police. But if a run in with the former is almost unimaginable, with the later it is simply a matter of time. Most Gaijins, after all, can't help but flaunt their self-imagined diplomatic immunity. In my experience contact with the J-Police will rarely end in tears - although American cop shows do seem to be making headway in Japan. Uniforms are beginning to take on a decidedly SWAT-ish appearance, and the cop with a sense of self-importance is not unheard of. In my experience J-cops were prefer to do without the hassles that accompany tackling the foreign perpetrator. But they will if necessary. You are most likely to find yourself in trouble for traffic violations, "stealing" bicycles from the trash, holding loud parties at home, or being drunken and disorderly. Most of these are fairly minor deals and can be overcome with cooperation. But remember, nobody steals a bicycle in Japan. Everyone is given a bicycle by some other foreigner who has already gone home... its true. If you are dealing with contraband then you are probably in serious trouble and the best thing to hope for is a free ticket home. So what is the best tactic when confronted by an over-confident SWAT-boy? Smile, whip out your foreigner registration card the moment they ask for it, and compliment them on their impecable English. What role do the police play in Japanese society? Are the Japanese boys in blue as affable and harmless as they appear riding around the backstreets on their bicycles? Or does this close contact conceal an insidious social cage of control that keeps the homogenous masses humming to the tune of their national/corporate/school antham? Over the years Japanologists have produced both gleaning report cards and damning accusations. In 1976 Bayley identified the role of the Japanese police force as conciliatory and reformatory, and as such, highly integrated with both the community and the rest of the justice system. Its this warm fuzzy feeling that Japanese people have towards the law enforcers that allows them to carry out "the residential survey". This involves visits by the police to residences and businesses twice yearly to collect personal details and ask about changes and unusual behaviour by other people in the area. Sounds spooky right? While you might consider it an invasion of privacy Bayley found some positives... like 'demonstrating the availability of police service and... developing personal relations between police officer and citizen' . It also seems that information is not collated by any central authority or shared with other government departments, and that participation is not compulsory (are the Japanese renown for saying 'no'?) While Bayley mentions the antagonism the residential survey generates among student radicals and leftists, Van Wolferen (that guy who loves to hate Japan, and gets hated himself by more than a few Japanese nationalists along the way) takes this antagonism as a central point. He reckons the survey is based in the prewar police checks which were akin to political witch hunts. It seems to me that the residential survey doesn't make sense without considering the homogeneity factor. Sure a whole stack of books have appeared in recent years pointing to the heterogeneity that does exist in Japanese society, but lets assume for the moment that on the world stage Japan has not been well known for its diversity in the post war era. In a highly conformist and homogeneous society the residential survey may be little more than a friendly visit by a police officer seeking cooperation. Yet where it does encounter anomalies in this homogeneity it surely takes on an intrusive or possibly even oppressive character. The fact that Japanese police seem to have a high degree of discretionary power at the local level doesn't make things any better. Bayley saw the police as reformers as well as enforcers. Discretion gives them the scope to elicit an apology, which is 'more than an acceptance of personal guilt; it is an undertaking not to offend again'. This role apparently flows from the fact that the police are a moral authority. Again, this can be viewed in a positive manner if that community is morally homogeneous. What does the ever critical eye of Van Wolferen have to say on this matter? Police discretion and their habit of seeking apologies can be likened to the importance placed on recantation by the prewar Tokko ('thought police') in their crackdown on heterodox ideology. There is a link here to the detention and interrogation procedures employed in the investigation of more serious crimes. It seems the law in Japan provides for suspects to be detained for up to twenty three days without a charge being filed and that access to council is limited. Now Bayley recognizes the risk of forced confessions - but claims that it is rare because of the sense of responsibility felt by police custodians. If there is any infringement of the individual's rights, it is only temporary, and only necessary for the greater good of reforming the offender. While Bayley characterized the detained suspect as having 'fewer procedural protections', Van Wolferen writes that 'the legal rights of the individual are as good as irrelevant'. Citing the Tokyo lawyers' study he gives accounts of physical violence, subtle blackmail and 'de facto' torture. Tempered by the uncertainty of how common these occurrences are, this account nonetheless gives the impression van Wolferen wants; that the system can be oppressive and violate the individual's rights. If one accepts the view that cases of human rights volation are a rare but necessary evil inherent in any good policing system, then Bayley's view seems quite attractive. To summarize, the Japanese police exercise a community based role of guidance and reform, which, because it is culturally derived and legitimized, transcends the boundary between private and public taken for granted in Western countries. But it is in the area of freedom of political thought that van Wolferen concentrates and effectively brings Bayley's view into question. Van Wolferen states that the Japanese system has 'consistently and vehemently' reacted against leftists, and gives numerous examples to support this. In doing so he even selects a quote from Bayley : 'Ideology, not income, structures the misuse of authority'. Although instances of violation of the individual's rights may be rare, the circumstances in which they do occur are to some extent facilitated by accepted and institutionalized methods. It should be clear that any simplistic evaluation will be inadequate. An alternative view would be to see the Japanese policing system as structurally tolerant of violations of human rights but in practice rarely resulting in such. This is made possible by the relative homogeneity of Japanese society. But as a result it is the exceptions to this homogeneity that realize the violative potential of the system. The police's role of reformer and not just law enforcer, for example, is quite acceptable when the crime involves the infringement of a socially demanded moral norm. Yet in the area of politically motivated actions this role oversteps its jurisdiction into an area of freedom which has come to be seen as universally inviolable. The major issue of concern, however, is that the policing system is one of the agents contributing to the homogeneity which keeps its own structure from appearing violative of human rights in practice. Now get your head around that. Round up... Following in the footsteps of the samurai class town magistrates of the Edo Period, real police arrived in 1873 with the establishment of the Home Ministry after the Meiji Restoration. They had power over just about everything. And things got bad when the Special Higher Police (Tokko) were established in 1928. These rather serious guys played an integral part in the militarism that dominated Japan until the end of WWII, involving themselves in business and military mobilization and the eradication of communism. The occupation abolished the Home Ministry in 1947 with the enactment of a new Police Law. The new system proved overly decentralized and it was ammended in 1951 and again in 1954. The present system centers on the prefectural police whose major presence is felt through the koban or police box system - cops on every corner. Its not as oppressing as it sounds. The prefectural level is linked to the National Police Agency which coordinates the whole deal and provides centralized services. home |
