Individually, many Japanese police officers are honest and dedicated. But as an institution, the force they serve is arrogant, complacent and incompetent.
Quote of the Day ( 10 )
Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia editor for The Times of London, and author of “People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished From the Streets of Tokyo — and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up.” (The New York Times)
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3
Stephen Knight
So many stories of what really can only be called ineptitude these days... Police go to question a man about a missing English teacher from England; he gives them the slip while they're questioning him (at his apartment), and they later find the woman's body in a sand-filled bathtub on his balcony. He remained on the lam for more than two years. Police in at least two recent murder cases have lost their suspects to suicide--while they were being transported for questioning (they apparently don't search suspects prior to taking them in, if they've volunteered to go--both suspects had knives). And there was the suspect whose home was being searched for evidence of some thefts; he asked to step out to make a phone call, then went to the roof of his apartment building and jumped off. The police suspended their search (the suspect was dead, after all--but didn't his suicide raise further suspicions??), and it wasn't until the landlord went to clean out the apartment that the corpse secreted in a closet was found... I think the author is right, there's just a fundamental lack of procedural rigorousness when dealing with crimes that aren't "by the book", and a tendency to take the easy way out even when doing so disregards all principles of justice and investigative practice. Even the once-vaunted neighborhood police box system is on the wane--they seem to be unstaffed half the time...
0
timeon
Stephen, you forget the guy who doused himself with gasoline and threatened to lit himself up, got arrested, asked for a smoke, and the police gave him lighter! he was burned so badly he didn't make it
0
marcelito
I think the above quote is spot on. timeon - are you serious ?...unbelievable.
2
ExportExpert
Pretty much sums them up, except lacking the most crucial words, LAZY & CORRUPT.
0
timeon
Marcelito, very serious, it happened about one year ago. they took him to the koban, he wanted to smoke, so an officer gave him a lighter. he immediately set himself ablaze
1
Ah_so
Doh!
0
herefornow
Name an institution in Japan that this phrase does not apply to? It will be a short list.
1
warnerbro
The problem is arrogant bureaucracy. The people running this place get their jobs by virtue of having passed some manner of trivial quiz at age 22. They believe they are entitled to set and enforce the rules and the people be damned.
0
JohnBecker
Not to argue with the point made by Mr. Parry, but the rest of the quote may very well have been "Buy my book."
-1
gaijinfo
I don't know about incompetent. They're pretty good at picking foreigners out of a crowd and asking to see their bicycle registration.
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