NCJ Number
192057
Date Published
2001
Length
284 pages
Annotation
This study examined Japan’s system of crime control and policing, and compared it with the United States, and offered recommendations for policing in the United States based on the Japanese system.
Abstract
Information came from direct observations of Japanese police practices, combined with interviews of police officials, criminal justice practitioners, legal scholars, and citizens. The analysis includes data and documents, reports, and other written materials collected from different parts of Japan. It also places the examination of policing within the setting of other criminal justice institutions such as the courts and the prisons and discusses the role of the police in the broader cultural and historical Japanese context. The analysis compares crime in Japan and the United States, describes the historical and legal framework for policing in Japan, and explains that Japan has a national police system with a decentralized structure of prefectural police agencies throughout the country and a national police agency at the top of the hierarchy. Additional chapters focus on police behavior and practices, police work attitudes, investigative powers and techniques, trial procedures, institutional and community-based corrections, crime committed in Japan by foreigners, juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice policies, police-citizen interactions, and police-community relations. The analysis concludes that the organization of Japanese policing as a national system will help it meet the challenges of the future and recommends that the United States establish a national police college, consider at least a quasi-national policing system, establish counseling centers for families and juveniles, and expand crime prevention activities. Figures, tables, photographs, index, and 164 references