Experience reporting domestic violence to the police several months after it occurred

I’m not sure if anyone was expecting to hear from me again, but I thought I would return with a further offering of information about dealing with the police as a foreign victim of domestic violence from a Japanese spouse.

This post contains information regarding my experience reporting an incident of domestic violence approximately three months after the fact. Your experience may vary, but I do hope this post can inspire someone in a similar situation to seek help.

The reasons I am still here and the reasons I went to the police to leave another report months after the fact are multifaceted and nuanced. I do not have the emotional bandwidth to explain the details, but for anyone curious, I will include some information about myself and my situation at the end. This information is not the point of my post.

The report process I went through today is very much the same as the when I originally reported domestic violence to the police without “pressing charges,” with a few key differences.

The first is something that is not a difference and was perhaps obvious to others at the time, but that I learned this afternoon: in order to get my phone number registered for the 110登録 back in 2020, the submission of a proper police report or 被害届け, higai todoke, is actually a requirement. I was hoping to just reopen my old report and reregister, but the officers asked that I submit a new report. They were able to confirm my original report within minutes of my inquiring about whether they still had it, but once you let the registration period pass without renewal, the case is considered “closed.” The kouban could keep a record of my having dropped by, but I needed to go to the bigger police station if I wanted to reregister my phone number.

So, with this “new” information, I will again explain what I understand of the 110登録 system, which is what I reregistered for when I made my second report. “110登録” is short for 110番通報者登録制度, hyaku touban tsuuhousha touroku seido, and is a system in which your phone number and address are registered with the police for 3 months. During this time, if you call 110, they will know to go straight to your registered address, equipped with the awareness that they are likely heading into a domestic violence situation. I learned after my post 2 years ago that once a month for those three months a 生活安全課 officer will phone you to check in. The phone call is brief and to the point, just checking that you are okay. During my third phone call two years ago, I was asked if I felt the need to extend my registration, but I responded at the time that I did not. This registration system is also available to victims of stalking.

The second difference is that I was asked for evidence while I was at the kouban, and again when I was at the actual ward police station. I expect this is because I was reporting an incident from November last year and could not show current injury. I provided the dated photos that I had saved to the officer and explained that I also made a trip to a doctor that weekend. The kouban did nothing but note the date of the photos, while the station took photos of my phone after asking me to turn the brightness up.

As my report was being made three months after the incident actually occurred, the officers were very interested in knowing what I was thinking by coming in now. Unfortunately, I was not actually thinking when I dropped by the kouban, so I was unable to answer this question appropriately. In the end, I told them that I just wanted someone to listen to my situation and that I did not want them to contact my husband – both of these requests were respected.

The third and most important difference is that their intake process has changed. When I went two years ago, I told the officers my story at the kouban and then again at the station while one officer listened and another took notes. This time, in addition to the evidence they requested at the station, a female office came and specifically checked my shoulders and my back (and nowhere else). Then, I also had three pictures of me taken partway through the process. The pictures were of me standing, masked, from the front and from behind, with the third picture being a closer picture of my unmasked face.

In addition, shortly after the photos of me were taken, the officer in charge explained that the process had changed and he wanted me to go through a survey of sorts with him. The survey was tailored to victims or DV or stalking (or both), and was fairly simple. I believe it was part of the 110登録 registration because I had to write the date, my name, and my phone number. I also gave them my father in law’s phone number as an emergency contact.

The survey questions were, to my memory, confirming whether or not I wanted them to contact my husband now, what I want them to do if another incident occurred, and whether I wanted to evacuate to a shelter. The interesting aspect to this survey was that the officer asked me to fill in a “reason” section for each multiple choice answer I made. He encouraged me to write my reasoning in my own words, so I did. I did this process in Japanese, writing my answers in hiragana, and I do not know if this survey exists in English. Unfortunately, I was feeling very overwhelmed by that point so I did not think to ask and my memory is not clear. There may have been a fourth question.

During the process at the station, it was explained to me very clearly that I held the power in my situation. If I asked the police for help in the form of investigating my situation by talking to my husband, then they would do that. If I told them I wanted them to take me to a shelter, they would do that. If I told them that I did not want them to contact my husband, then they *could not* contact him about this. I apologized for not being cooperative and the officer kindly told me that everything was my decision and not his place to judge, and that they were only a phone call away when I was ready.

We talked about escalation and the cycle of violence. He gave me a sheet of paper with a strangely endearing “made in Microsoft Word” styled chart of the cycle. He said that many victims who make reports do not realize they are repeating a cycle, so it was important to him that I understood.

This time, I left the police station alone and walked home. I am home now.

If anyone is interested, in the last two years I have changed jobs (part time to seishain) and put my husband as a dependent on my insurance. I was not able to get PR, twice. The first time was my own fault (late payment), the second was my husband’s (two late payments). Putting my husband on my insurance will remedy the late payment problem by this summer. Over the last two years, we were doing a reasonably good job moving forward and subsequently went those two years without incident. At the end of last year, things happened and my husband tried counseling aimed at abusers but did not click with the therapist. While I see improvement again after watching him for several months, I think the damage is probably irreparable at this point. I had a bit of a nervous break this morning and asked my manager to check about visa/resident status support options at my company. I have not made a final decision on the matter. I do not want to talk in depth about my thought process.

To repeat the same sentiment from the last time I posted – if you are being abused, it is possible to seek help from the police. I highly recommend the 110登録, as it provides immense peace of mind for those who are not ready to take definitive action. While I got the impression this time around that the police really wanted me to let them talk to my husband, which is understandable considering what I told them, the officers did not pressure me to make any moves that I did not want to make. They made clear everything they could and provided me with the options I could choose from.

Please note that if you choose to make a report, you will be the one making the decisions. The police can only help you as much as you allow them to. I hope this post encourages anyone who believes that they cannot ask for help to go and seek any help that they need. The kouban officer who first spoke to me told me that it was not an issue that I was coming in months late.

Thank you for reading.