Japan Times: Former detective talks about curbing gangs
Here's a great interview with an ex-cop in Tokyo who enacted several procedural changes in how to deal with growing gang activity.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20111106x1.html
I think a lot of us foreigners in Japan have it easy when it comes to our safety in Japan. Some of us live out in what Americans like to affectionately call the "boonies", living in a calm, quiet countryside environment. Many more live in the metropolises. We're accustomed now to carrying around large amounts of cash as we walk around, usually at night (though often in large numbers). We tend to be lax about how we lock up our bicycles (despite the fact that bicycle theft is still an issue here). My fiance often comes home from work very late and walks around by herself just fine.
And that's great. But it's not to say that Japan has always been this safe, as this article points out. Many manga in the 70s and 80s were very much about youth delinquents and gangs, and they were heavily romanticized. By extrapolation, you could even go so far as to say that this just encouraged young people more.
Often, I wish that Japanese police, especially Tokyo police, were a bit more active in chasing down real crime (most foreigners have a "stopped on my bike and asked for my gaijin card" story, though I do not as of yet), but it's interesting to realize that the bulk of their action goes on where we can't see it.
It's also interesting how he says that they spend so much more time documenting and investigating instead of arresting suspects at the first opportunity, and I'm wondering how long this takes compared to police units in other countries. If it raises the probability of not only catching the right guy but also convicting him, then I don't mind occasionally muttering at the TV that the cops seem to be so sloooow regarding any given reported crime of the week.
I like stories like this because these are people issues, and not simply Japanese issues, and I think Japan deserves a little bit of humanization on the Internet.
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