![Tokyo-Metropolitan-Police-Board-Headquarters-1931](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Tokyo-Metropolitan-Police-Board-Headquarters-1931.png)
The of the
Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
comprised numerous
police
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...
services, in many cases with overlapping jurisdictions.
History and background
During the
Tokugawa bakufu
The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...
(1603–1867), police functions in Japan operated through appointed town
magistrate
The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judici ...
s of ''
samurai
were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...
'' status, who served simultaneously as
chiefs of police,
prosecutor
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the Civil law (legal system), civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the ...
s and
judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...
s. These magistrates were assisted by a professional police-force led by officers who were also of ''samurai'' status. In turn, the ''samurai'' officers were assisted by deputized commoners known as ''jittemochi'', who were granted
powers of arrest. The citizenry was organized into
goningumi (Five-family associations), the forerunner of the ''
tonarigumi
The was the smallest unit of the national mobilization program established by the Japanese government in World War II. It consisted of units consisting of 10-15 households organized for fire fighting, civil defense and internal security.
Histo ...
'', whose members had collective responsibility for the actions and activities of each one of their fellows. The official formula used in feudal times to inform a subject that he had been placed under arrest was to simply shout "''Go'yō!''" (御用) – the expression also meant "Official business!" or "Clear the way!".
![Japanese Policeman circa 1875](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Japanese_Policeman_circa_1875.JPG)
As part of the modernization of Japan after the 1868
Meiji Restoration
The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...
, the new
Meiji government
The was the government that was formed by politicians of the Satsuma Domain and Chōshū Domain in the 1860s. The Meiji government was the early government of the Empire of Japan.
Politicians of the Meiji government were known as the Meiji o ...
sent
Kawaji Toshiyoshi
, also known as Kawaji Toshikane, was a Japanese statesman and chief of police during the Meiji period.Lanman, Charles. ''Leading Men of Japan: With an Historical Summary of the Empire''. The University of California. Published by D. Lothrop a ...
on a tour of Europe in 1872 to study various law-enforcement systems. He returned impressed with the structure and techniques of the police forces of
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
's
Third Republic and of
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
as models for the new Japanese police system. With the establishment of the
Home Ministry
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministr ...
in 1873, his recommendations were implemented, and civilian police powers became centralized at the national level, although implementation was delegated to the
prefectural level.
Under the Home Ministry, the also had quasi-judicial functions, including the power to issue ordinances and to regulate
business license
Business licenses are permits issued by government agencies that allow individuals or companies to conduct business within the government's geographical jurisdiction. It is the authorization to start a business issued by the local government.
A ...
s,
construction permit
Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...
s,
industrial safety
Occupational safety and health (OSH), also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health, or occupational safety, is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at ...
and
public-health issues, in addition to its
criminal-investigation and public-order functions. The centralized police system steadily acquired extra functions, until it controlled almost all aspects of daily life, including
fire prevention
Fire prevention is a function of many fire departments. The goal of fire prevention is to educate the public on the precautions which should be taken to prevent potentially harmful fires and how to survive these fires in the event that they do o ...
and the mediation of labor disputes.
During the
Satsuma Rebellion
The Satsuma Rebellion, also known as the was a revolt of disaffected samurai against the new imperial government, nine years into the Meiji Era. Its name comes from the Satsuma Domain, which had been influential in the Restoration and beca ...
of 1877, the lack of an organized, trained
standing army
A standing army is a permanent, often professional, army. It is composed of full-time soldiers who may be either career soldiers or conscripts. It differs from army reserves, who are enrolled for the long term, but activated only during wars or n ...
forced the central government to use units from the police bureau as
militia
A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
to suppress the uprising.
![Jokyoin and Junkei](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Jokyoin_and_Junkei.JPG)
After 1911, a separate department, the Special Higher Police (
''Tokko''), was established specifically to deal with political crimes and
counter-espionage
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or o ...
. Similar to
Special Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security and Intelligence (information gathering), intelligence in Policing in the United Kingdom, British, Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth, ...
es in the later
Commonwealth of Nations
The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...
, the ''Tokko'' investigated and suppressed potentially subversive ideologies, including
anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
,
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
, and
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
, as well as monitoring the growing foreign population within Japan. Its scope gradually increased to include
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...
groups,
pacifists, student activists, liberals, and ultra-rightists. The ''Tokko'' also regulated the content of motion pictures, political meetings, and election campaigns.
The military came under the police jurisdiction of the ''
Kempeitai
The , also known as Kempeitai, was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945 that also served as a secret police force. In addition, in Japanese-occupied territories, the Kenpeitai arrested or killed those suspecte ...
'' (founded in 1881) for the
Imperial Japanese Army
The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...
and the
''Tokkeitai'' (founded in 1942)
for the
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...
, although both military organizations had overlapping jurisdiction over the civilian population.
In the
Shanghai International Settlement
The Shanghai International Settlement () originated from the merger in the year 1863 of the British and American enclaves in Shanghai, in which British subjects and American citizens would enjoy extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction ...
the
Japanese Consular Police was established and kept under the control of the Japanese consulate in order to apprehend Japanese wanted for crimes committed against the state.
After the
Manchurian Incident
The Mukden Incident, or Manchurian Incident, known in Chinese as the 9.18 Incident (九・一八), was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria.
On September 18, 1931, L ...
of 1931, military police assumed greater authority, leading to friction with their civilian counterparts. After the start of the
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...
in 1937, police regulated industry and commerce (to maximize the war effort and to prevent speculation and hoarding), mobilized labor, and controlled transportation.
Japan set up civil police services overseas (in
Korea,
Kwantung Leased Territory
The Kwantung Leased Territory ( ja, 關東州, ''Kantō-shū''; ) was a leased territory of the Empire of Japan in the Liaodong Peninsula from 1905 to 1945.
Japan first acquired Kwantung from the Qing Empire in perpetuity in 1895 in the Trea ...
,
Taiwan,
Karafuto
Karafuto Prefecture ( ja, 樺太庁, ''Karafuto-chō''; russian: Префектура Карафуто, Prefektura Karafuto), commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a prefecture of Japan located in Sakhalin from 1907 to 1949.
Karafuto became t ...
, some extraterritorial
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese dependencies in
Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...
,
Peking
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
and
Tientsin before war started on the
Chinese mainland). From the 1930s period to the
Pacific War
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
of 1941-1945, other similar but "native" civil police-services operated in
Manchukuo
Manchukuo, officially the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of (Great) Manchuria after 1934, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China, Manchuria from 1932 until 1945. It was founded as a republic in 1932 afte ...
,
Mengjiang
Mengjiang, also known as Mengkiang or the Mongol Border Land, and governed as the Mengjiang United Autonomous Government, was an autonomous area in Inner Mongolia, formed in 1939 as a puppet state of the Empire of Japan, then from 1940 being ...
and the
Nanking Nationalist Government. The police and security services in the
South Seas Mandate
The South Seas Mandate, officially the Mandate for the German Possessions in the Pacific Ocean Lying North of the Equator, was a League of Nations mandate in the "South Seas" given to the Empire of Japan by the League of Nations following Wo ...
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 headed by Kawaji from 1874, and from which he could direct the organization of the national police system.
The vague wording of the 1925
Peace Preservation Law gave all police organizations wide scope for interpretation of what constituted "criminal activity", and under the guise of "maintenance of order", the police exercised broad powers of surveillance and arrest. Lack of accountability and a tradition of "guilty until proven innocent" led to 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 surrendered in 1945, the
American occupation authorities retained the prewar police structure pending the implementation of a new system. The
Diet of Japan
The is the national legislature of Japan. It is composed of a lower house, called the House of Representatives (, ''Shūgiin''), and an upper house, the House of Councillors (, '' Sangiin''). Both houses are directly elected under a paralle ...
passed the
1947 Police Law to set up new decentralized systems: and the . But this system didn't match the Japanese national situation, so a complete restructuring ushered in a more centralized system with the
National Police Agency National Police may refer to the national police forces of several countries:
*Afghanistan: Afghan National Police
*Haiti: Haitian National Police
*Colombia: National Police of Colombia
*Cuba: Cuban National Police
*East Timor: National Police of E ...
and
prefectural police department
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, re ...
s under the 1954 amended Police Law.
Service weapons
At the beginning of modern police systems, only senior officers were permitted to wear a sword, so most constables had only a
baton. Then, in 1882, all officers started to be issued a
sabre
A sabre ( French: sabʁ or saber in American English) is a type of backsword with a curved blade associated with the light cavalry of the early modern and Napoleonic periods. Originally associated with Central European cavalry such as th ...
.
Only some elite
detective
A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...
s,
bodyguard
A bodyguard (or close protection officer/operative) is a type of security guard, government law enforcement officer, or servicemember who protects a person or a group of people — usually witnesses, high-ranking public officials or officers, w ...
s, or
SWAT
In the United States, a SWAT team (special weapons and tactics, originally special weapons assault team) is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to ...
units such as the
Special Security Unit
The Special Security Unit (SSU) is a specialized counterterrorism and security unit of the Sindh Police in Pakistan. It is a Karachi-based unit, with its operational jurisdiction extending throughout Sindh as a whole. It was established in 2010 ...
of the TMPD were issued pistols.
FN Model 1910
The FN Model 1910 is a blowback-operated, semi-automatic pistol designed by John Browning and manufactured by Fabrique Nationale of Belgium.
Development
The FN Model 1910, also known as the Browning model 1910, was a departure for Browning. Bef ...
or
Colt Model 1903 were used for open-carry uses, and
FN M1905
The FN Model 1905 (from its patent date) or FN Model 1906 (in European countries due to its date of manufacture) was a pistol manufactured by Fabrique Nationale de Herstal from 1906 to 1959.
It is virtually identical to the Colt Model 1908 Vest P ...
or
Colt Model 1908 Vest Pocket
The Model 1908 Vest Pocket is a compact, hammerless, striker-fired, semi-automatic single-action pistol. Manufactured by the Colt's Manufacturing Company from 1908 to 1948, it was marketed as a small concealable firearm which could be easily ...
for
concealed carry
Concealed carry, or carrying a concealed weapon (CCW), is the practice of carrying a weapon (usually a sidearm such as a handgun), either in proximity to or on one's person or in public places in a manner that hides or conceals the weapon's pre ...
uses. And in the border area like
Karafuto Prefecture
Karafuto Prefecture ( ja, 樺太庁, ''Karafuto-chō''; russian: Префектура Карафуто, Prefektura Karafuto), commonly known as South Sakhalin, was a prefecture of Japan located in Sakhalin from 1907 to 1949.
Karafuto became ter ...
and
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
, there were some armed police units with military
small arms
A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions).
The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes c ...
.
See also
*
Kempeitai
The , also known as Kempeitai, was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945 that also served as a secret police force. In addition, in Japanese-occupied territories, the Kenpeitai arrested or killed those suspecte ...
*
Tokeitai
*
Tokko
*
Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department
The serves as the prefectural police department of Tokyo Metropolis. Founded in 1874, it is headed by a Superintendent-General, who is appointed by the National Public Safety Commission, and approved by the Prime Minister.
The Tokyo Metro ...
*
Law enforcement in Japan
Law enforcement in Japan is provided mainly by the prefectural police departments under the oversight of the National Police Agency. The National Police Agency is administered by the National Public Safety Commission, thus ensuring that Japan's po ...
*
National Police Agency National Police may refer to the national police forces of several countries:
*Afghanistan: Afghan National Police
*Haiti: Haitian National Police
*Colombia: National Police of Colombia
*Cuba: Cuban National Police
*East Timor: National Police of E ...
References
*
*
*
*
External links
{{commonscat-inline, Police history of Japan
Politics of the Empire of Japan
Law enforcement in Japan