Above the Law? Police Integrity in Japan

Abstract

This paper presents data from an 'integrity survey' administered to 182 Japanese police officers and compares the results with analogous data from 30 American police departments. Although the survey generated high scores for police integrity in Japan, a recent spate of scandals casts doubt on the results. Moreover, since the mechanisms for exposing misconduct are undeveloped in Japan, police behavior may well be worse than it appears.Three problems of police corruption are especially acute: the embezzlement of money from police slush funds; the corruption endemic in police control over Japan's pachinko industry; and police tolerance of organized crime.The problem of police corruption in Japan is not a matter of a few 'rotten apples' but of a failed organization.The challenge, therefore, is how to fix the organization. Significant reform requires conditions which now are absent and seem unlikely to emerge anytime soon. For the foreseeable future, Japanese police seem likely to remain above the law.