Japan

Conditions of Service

Education is highly stressed in police recruitment and promotion. Entrance to the force is determined by examinations administered by each prefecture. Examinees are divided into two groups: upper-secondary-school graduates and university graduates. Recruits underwent rigorous training--one year for upper-secondary school graduates and six months for university graduates--at the residential police academy attached to the prefectural headquarters. On completion of basic training, most police officers are assigned to local police boxes. Promotion is achieved by examination and requires further course work. In-service training provides mandatory continuing education in more than 100 fields. Police officers with upper-secondary school diplomas are eligible to take the examination for sergeant after three years of on-the- job experience. University graduates can take the examination after only one year. University graduates are also eligible to take the examination for assistant police inspector, police inspector, and superintendent after shorter periods than upper-secondary school graduates. There are usually five to fifteen examinees for each opening.

About fifteen officers per year pass advanced civil service examinations and are admitted as senior officers. Officers are groomed for administrative positions, and, although some rise through the ranks to become senior administrators, most such positions are held by specially recruited senior executives.

The police forces are subject to external oversight. Although officials of the National Public Safety Commission generally defer to police decisions and rarely exercise their powers to check police actions or operations, police are liable for civil and criminal prosecution, and the media actively publicizes police misdeeds. The Human Rights Bureau of the Ministry of Justice solicits and investigates complaints against public officials, including police, and prefectural legislatures could summon police chiefs for questioning. Social sanctions and peer pressure also constrain police behavior. As in other occupational groups in Japan, police officers develop an allegiance to their own group and a reluctance to offend its principles.

Data as of January 1994

Japan - TABLE OF CONTENTS

• MILITARISM BEFORE 1945
  • The Bushido Code
  • The Modernization of the Military, 1868-1931
  • World War II
    • Establishment of Manchukuo
    • Sino-Japanese War
    • War in the Pacific
• THE SELF-DEFENSE FORCES
  • Early Development
  • Strategic Considerations
  • Place in National Life
  • Missions
  • Organization, Training, and Equipment
    • The Defense Agency
    • The Ground Self-Defense Force
    • The Maritime Self-Defense Force
    • The Air Self-Defense Force
  • Recruitment and Conditions of Service
  • Uniforms, Ranks, and Insignia
  • Defense Spending
  • The Defense Industry
  • Military Relations with the United States
• PUBLIC ORDER AND INTERNAL SECURITY
  • The Police System
    • National Organization
    • Local Organization
    • Riot Police
    • Special Police
    • Police-Community Relations
    • Conditions of Service
  • The Criminal Justice System
  • Crime
  • Civil Disturbances
  • Criminal Procedure
  • The Penal System