Police services of the Empire of Japan

The nihongo|Police System|警察制度|Keisatsu Seidō of the Empire of Japan, consisted of numerous police services, in many cases with overlapping jurisdictions.

History and background

During the Tokugawa bakufu (1603-1867), police functions were based on a combination of appointed town magistrates of "samurai" status, who served simultaneously as a chief of police, prosecutor and judge. The magistrates were assisted by a professional police force with "samurai" status officers, and deputized "jittemochi" commoners with powers of arrest. The citizenry was organized into "gonin-gumi" (Five-family associations), the forerunner of the "tonarigumi," whose members were collectively responsible for the actions and activities of any one of their members.

As part of the modernization of Japan after the Meiji Restoration, the new Meiji government sent Kawaji Toshinaga went for a tour of Europe in 1872 to study various law enforcement systems. He returned impressed with the structure and techniquests of the police forces of France's Third Republic and of Prussia as models for the new Japanese police system. With the establishment of the Home Ministry in 1873, his recommendation were implemented, and civilian police powers were centralized at the national level, although implementation was delegated to the prefectural level.

Under the Home Ministry, the "Keihōkyoku" (Police Bureau) also had quasi-judicial functions, including the power to issue ordinances, regulate business licenses, construction permits, industrial safety and public health issues, in addition to its criminal investigation and public order functions. The centralized police system steadily acquired responsibilities, until it controlled almost all aspects of daily life, including fire prevention and mediation of labor disputes.

During the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877, the lack of an organized, trained standing army forced the central government to use units from the police bureau as militia to suppress the uprising.

After 1911, a separate department, the Special Higher Police ("Tokko"), was established specifically to deal with political crimes. The "Tokko" investigated and suppressed potentially subversive ideologies, ranging from anarchism, communism, socialism, and the growing foreign population within Japan, but its scope gradually increased to include religious groups, pacifists, student activists, liberals, and ultrarightists. The Tokko also regulated the content of motion pictures, political meetings, and election campaigns. The Tokko also had a counter-espionage function similar to MI5 in Great Britain.

The military fell under the jurisdiction of the "Kempeitai" for the Imperial Japanese Army and the "Tokeitai" for the Imperial Japanese Navy, although both organizations had overlapping jurisdiction over the civilian population.

After the Manchurian Incident of 1931, military police assumed greater authority, leading to friction with their civilian counterparts. After the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, police regulated industry and commerce to maximize the war effort and to prevent speculation and hoarding, mobilized labor, and controlled transportation.

Civil police services were also set up overseas (in Korea, Kwantung Leased Territory, Taiwan, Karafuto, some extraterritorial Japanese dependencies in Shanghai, Peking and Tientsin before the war on the Chinese mainland). Later, from the 1930s period to the Pacific War other similar but "native" civil police services operated in Manchukuo, Mengjiang and the Wang Jingwei Government. The police and security services in South Pacific Mandate and occupied Pacific areas were the charge of the "Tokeitai".

The Tokyo metropolitan area came under the jurisdiction of the Teikoku Keishichō (帝國警視廳) or Keishichō, which was personally headd by Kawaji from 1874, and from which he could direct the organization of the national police system.

The vague wording of the Peace Preservation Laws gave all police organizations wide scope for interpretation of what constituted "criminal activity", and under the guise of "maintenance of order", the police were allowed broad powers for surveillance and arrest. Lack of accountability and a tradition of 'guilty until proven innocent' led to the many of the brutalities carried out by the police forces. In rural areas especially, the police had great authority and were accorded the same mixture of fear and respect as the village head. The increasing involvement of the police in political affairs was one of the foundations of the authoritarian state in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century.

After Japan's surrender in 1945, the American occupation authorities retained the prewar police structure until a new system was implemented and the Diet of Japan passed the 1947 Police Law creating the new National Police Agency (Japan).

tandard weapons of civil police forces

*Rifles:
**Type 38 Rifle
**Type 44 Cavalry Rifle
**Type 97 Light Machine Gun

*Pistols & Revolvers:
**Type 26 9 mm Pistol
**Type 14 8 mm Nambu Pistol
**Type 94 8 mm Pistol

ee also

*Kempeitai
*Tokeitai
*Tokko
*Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department
*Law enforcement in Japan

References

*cite book
last = Tipton
first = Elise
authorlink =
coauthors =
year = 2001
chapter =
title = Japanese Police State Tokko - the Interwar Japan
publisher = Allen and Unwin
location =
id = ASIN: B000TYWIKW
*cite book
last = Cunningham
first = Don
authorlink =
coauthors =
year = 2004
chapter =
title = Taiho-Jutsu: Law and Order in the Age of the Samurai
publisher = Tuttle Publishing
location =
id = ISBN 0804835365
*cite book
last = Katzenstein
first = Peter J
authorlink =
coauthors =
year = 1996
chapter =
title = Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and Military in Postwar Japan
publisher = Cornell University Press
location =
id = ISBN 0801483328
*cite book
last = Botsman
first = Daniel V
authorlink =
coauthors =
year = 2004
chapter =
title = Punishment and Power in the Making of Modern Japan
publisher = Princeton University Press
location =
id = ISBN 0691114919