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Japan Special Police
In addition to regular police officers, there are
several
thousand officials attached to various agencies who
perform special
duties relating to public safety. They are responsible for
such
matters as railroad security, forest preservation,
narcotics
control, fishery inspection, and enforcement of
regulations on
maritime, labor, and mine safety.
The largest and most important of these
ministry-supervised
public safety agencies is the Maritime Safety Agency, an
external
bureau of the Ministry of Transportation that deals with
crime in
coastal waters and maintains facilities for safeguarding
navigation. The agency operates a fleet of patrol and
rescue craft
in addition to a few aircraft used primarily for
antismuggling
patrols and rescue activities. In 1990 there were 2,846
incidents
in and on the waters. In those incidents, 1,479 people
drowned or
were lost and 1,347 people were rescued.
There are other agencies having limited public safety
functions. These agencies include the Labor Standards
Inspection
Office of the Ministry of Labor, railroad police of Japan
Railways
Group, immigration agents of the Ministry of Justice,
postal
inspectors of the Ministry of Posts and
Telecommunications, and
revenue inspectors in the Ministry of Finance.
A small intelligence agency, the Public Security
Investigation
Office of the Ministry of Justice, handles national
security
matters both inside and outside the country. Its
activities are not
generally known to the public.
Data as of January 1994
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