Police boredom and over-policing

Today, I came across this article of a woman in Nagoya suing the government over keeping her DNA data after the police investigation had ended. It didn't sound like an unreasonable request. Here's the article:


I assumed she must have been involved in a murder case or some other heinous crime until I read this:

According to the suit, the woman's fingerprints and DNA were collected by the Aichi prefectural police in August 2014 after she was questioned the previous month by the police on suspicion of putting a flyer on a utility pole seeking information about her missing dog.

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Lucky Japan: as the police are running out of crimes, over-policing certain aspects of Japanese society seems to become the rule.

In practice, this means lots of police attention. Petty drugs offences are treated with forensic rigour. Police have arrested athletes, rock stars and university students for smoking pot. One woman recalls five officers crowding into her cramped apartment after she reported her knickers being swiped from a clothesline.
As they run out of things to do, however, police are becoming more inventive about what constitutes a crime, says Kanako Takayama, a professor of criminal law at Kyoto University. In one recent case, she says, they arrested a group of people who had shared the fees for a rented car because they judged it was an illegal taxi.
Critics who fret about over-enthusiastic police cite a week-long stakeout in 2016, in Kyushu, southwest Japan. Five officers watched over a case of beer in an unlocked car outside a supermarket in Kagoshima, scene of a series of car robberies, before pouncing on the hapless middle-aged man who eventually helped himself.

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While the police are overzealous in checking bike registrations and investigating petty crime, other areas receive less attention:

However, even as the police amuse themselves by figuring out ways to catch the town drunk or harass teenage cyclists, they continue to studiously ignore a whole set of serious crimes that slide by under the radar in "safe" Japan. The same police who jump into action at the hint of a possibly-stolen bicycle are routinely indolent and useless in the face of reports of sexual assault or domestic violence.

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Personally, I have never had any issues with the police. I haven't been checked once in 15 years of cycling. But I understand now how they can afford to place a police officer in front of the elementary school in our neighbourhood every day since that stabbing three weeks ago.

The final statement from the article linked above:

The Japanese police are by no means all terrible; in many regards, they do a superb job. They excel at maintaining public order in busy places, at handling drunks and breaking up fights without anyone getting hurt, and generally at the day-to-day "uniformed policeman on the beat" tasks of their role. The idea that they have no work to do due to a low crime rate, however, is simply wrong at best, and mendacious at worst. There is plenty of crime in Japan; but a crime against women or children, a crime within families or relationships, is a crime that the police don't want to investigate or deal with, and their attitude has actively dissuaded victims from seeking their assistance. Protecting Japan's women and children from these crimes should take priority over staking out cases of beer.

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I was ID'd while on my bike. Luckily I wasn't to far from the house. They followed me and stayed at the front door. Had to show my passport and ID. All was well after that. The neighbors at least got a break from watching the TV dramas that they watch. Actually, being a small town and I really believe there is a section in the police dept. to know where all foreigners live. I know this for a fact in Yamaguchi city. Once you register in the city you get a police visit and answer about 10 questions. Although they don't enter your place, they do try to get a birds eye view of it.

musicisgood said:

Once you register in the city you get a police visit and answer about 10 questions. Although they don't enter your place, they do try to get a birds eye view of it.

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Thank goodness they are unable to conduct such house calls in Tokyo or Kanagawa.

Ha, I've seen stuff like that where I live (it's a really safe town). Not quite that petty, though!

Unfortunately, I have had three rather bad troubles with law enforcement in about 30 plus years, but the first was more U.S. Forces related and they let me go; the second was me assaulting (so to speak) an off-duty cop that was mouthing off too much and they let me go that time after a couple of weeks, but I had to get a judge I knew to help; and a few years ago another assault sort of thing related to law enforcement and that one went really, really bad and a group of them seriously messed me up. The final attack sort of thing happened right in their hdqs building by about 4 or 5 of them and I sincerely did not think I was going to make it that time. Once they were finished they then tied me up in an awfully brutal way and left me on a plastic sheet in a cell for a number of hours. It was a very, very strange event and eventually they had to get me to the hospital because the embassy folks were really pissed off about the whole thing. Eventually I wasn't charged, but there were a whole mess of folks involved in subsequent discussions about the whole thing and matters are still pending. Now that all the chemotherapy drugs and stuff are a regular part of my life and the steroids messing up my spine it is obvious I am not going to be doing any more fighting with anyone, so I guess me and my police friends have finally called a truce, so to speak. By the way, I've worked with law enforcement officials over the years and the truth is cops fight each other a whole bunch more than the average folk know about. It is a hardcore and stressful job and I suppose that cops can only fight each other and so that is what happens. But I was sort of a tad outside the inner circle, so I got tossed into the slammer a few times, but the last time was awfully bad and we are still not clear what exactly caused things to get out of control. That matter is still pending with probably some work needing to be done in Kasumigaseki to figure out what will happen. I've insisted from when we knew I would live that I am not interested in badges being taken away from anyone, but it would be good if that never happens to anyone else in future. Probably it was just freak things of a number of things that had piled up and finally came to a boil, but it shouldn't be allowed to happen to anyone again in the future. I did TKD tournaments in the ROK in the 70s and so I have been mighty messed up a few times in those controlled (so to speak) fights, but what them 4 or 5 boys did to me a couple years ago in that hdqs building was really, really messy. And that binding up they did of me, really nasty stuff. Don't reckon I'll ever be forgetting that stuff.