National Police Agency (Japan)

Police services of the Empire of Japan were placed under complete centralized control with the of the Home Ministry at their core. But after the surrender of Japan, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers regarded this centralized police system as undemocratic. During the occupation, the principle of decentralization was introduced by the 1947 Police Law. Cities and large towns had their own , and the was responsible for smaller towns, villages and rural areas. But most Japanese municipalities were too small to have a large police force, so sometimes they were unable to deal with large-scale violence. In addition, excessive fragmentation of the police organization reduced the efficiency of police activities. In December 2023, the NPA announced that the TAIT (Telecom Scam Allianced Investigation Team) will be established in April 2024 to unify investigation efforts across Japan on fraud cases. Since 2022, the number of people coming forward with racial profiling complaints against Japan's National Police Agency has grown. Foreigners are acknowledged to have been frequent racial profiling targets, with numerous racial profiling incidents not documented by police. ==Organization==

Leadership The is the highest ranking police officer of Japan, regarded as an exception to the regular class structure. For the , the Senior Commissioner is supplemented. The are their staff. The civilian political leadership is provided by the National Public Safety Commission. This bureau was derived from the Safety Division of the Criminal Affairs Bureau in 1994. • • • • Criminal Affairs Bureau The is in charge of research statistics and coordination of the criminal investigation of nationally important and international cases. It was later reformed to the Terrorism Response Team - Tactical Wing (TRT-2) for Overseas in order to meet with demands to coordinate with foreign police forces in assisting them whenever a terror attack has happened. • • • Local Branch Bureaus and Departments Regional Police Bureaus There are six , each responsible for a number of prefectures as below: ; : Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata, and Fukushima Prefectures ; : Ibaraki, Tochigi, Gunma, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa, Niigata, Yamanashi, Nagano, and Shizuoka Prefectures ; : Toyama, Ishikawa, Fukui, Gifu, Aichi, and Mie Prefectures ; : Shiga, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, Nara, and Wakayama Prefectures ; : Tottori, Shimane, Okayama, Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi Prefectures : Tokushima, Kagawa, Ehime, and Kochi Prefectures ; : Fukuoka, Saga, Nagasaki, Kumamoto, Oita, Miyazaki, Kagoshima, and Okinawa Prefectures They are located in major cities of each geographic region. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and Hokkaido Prefectural Police Headquarters are excluded from the jurisdiction of regional police bureaus. Headed by a Senior Commissioner, each regional police bureaus exercises necessary control and supervision over and provides support services to prefectural police within its jurisdiction, under the authority and orders of NPA's Commissioner General. Attached to each Regional Police Bureaus is a Regional Police School which provides police personnel with education and training required of staff officers as well as other necessary education and training. Police Communications Departments Metropolitan Tokyo and the island of Hokkaidō are excluded from the regional jurisdictions and are run more autonomously than other local forces, in the case of Tokyo, because of its special urban situation, and of Hokkaidō, because of its distinctive geography. The National Police Agency maintains police communications divisions in these two areas to handle any coordination needed between national and local forces. In other area, Police Communications Departments are established within each Regional Police Bureaus. • Independent Communications Departments • • Subsidiary Organs • • • ==See also==