In the law enforcement system in Japan, are prefecture-level law enforcement agencies responsible for policing, law enforcement, and public security within their respective prefectures of Japan. Although prefectural police are, in principle, regarded as municipal police, they are mostly under the central oversight and control of the National Police Agency.
As of 2017, the total strength of the prefectural police is approximately 260,400 sworn officers and 28,400 civilian staff, a total of 288,000 employees.
History
In the Empire of Japan, territorial police forces were organised as . They were placed under complete centralized control, with the of the Home Ministry at their core.
After the surrender of Japan, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers regarded this centralized police system as undemocratic. During the occupation of Japan, the principle of decentralisation was introduced by the 1947 (now commonly referred to as "Old Police Law"). Cities and large towns had their own , and the was responsible for smaller towns, villages and rural areas. However, most Japanese municipalities were too small to have an effectively large police force, so sometimes they were unable to deal with large-scale violence. In addition, excessive fragmentation of the police organisation reduced the efficiency of police activities.
As a response to these problems, complete restructuring created a more centralized system under the 1954 amended . All operational units except for the Imperial Guard were reorganized into the prefectural police departments for each prefecture and the National Police Agency was established as the central coordinating agency for these police departments.
Organisation
Each prefectural police department comprises a police authority and operational units: Prefectural Public Safety Commissions (PPSC) and Prefectural Police Headquarters (PPH).
Prefectural Public Safety Commission
are administrative committees established under the jurisdiction of prefectural governors to provide citizen oversight for police activities. A committee consists of three members in an ordinary prefecture and five members in urban prefectures. The members of prefectural public safety commission are appointed by the governor with the consent of the prefectural assembly.
Prefectural Police Headquarters
In Tokyo, the specifically refers to the . Also, Hokkaido Prefectural Police Headquarters is known as , and those in Ōsaka and Kyoto Prefectures are known as , and are distinguished from other .
The are appointed officials at the top of the chain of command in each Prefectural Police Headquarters. In the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, the name of is used.
These police departments are responsible for every police actions within their jurisdiction in principle, but most important activities are regulated by the National Police Agency. Police officers whose rank are higher than are salaried by the national budget even if they belong to local police departments. Designation and dismissal of these high-ranking officers are delegated to the National Public Safety Commission.
Each Prefectural police headquarters contains administrative departments (bureaus in the TMPD) corresponding to those of the bureaus of the National Police Agency as follows:
In addition, urban prefectural police departments comprise a and a .
There are some 289,000 police officers nationwide, about 97% of whom were affiliated with Prefectural Police Headquarters.
Community policing
In the Japanese police, community policing is treated as being close to crime prevention, and in rural prefectural police, community safety departments in charge of crime prevention sometimes concurrently handle community policing. Community policing officers are organised into several . Each station includes the following sections:
Officers of the community police affairs sections are distributed in their jurisdictions, working at , , radio mobile patrols, etc.
These community policing officers are supported by the community police department or the community safety department of the prefectural police headquarters. In addition to the administration of the police radio networks, they provide inter-regional patrol units and air support: and a , and many other assets.
Traffic policing
Originally traffic policing was mainly done by community policing officers. However, with the progress of motorization since the 1950s, traffic accidents have increased dramatically, resulting in the so-called traffic war, the system of traffic police was also strengthened.