Throw away account because this is a bit embarrassing, and I don’t want to deal with the J-lovers that tell me how great they are with giving directions.
**Long, multiple stories short, I have had some terrible experiences with the police here both with racist, targeted harassment, abuse, and even when seeking their help in serious situations. Unlike some who maybe never had a problem with abuse or harassment, I have NOT been so lucky.** No, I don’t want to talk about all the things I dealt with. No, I never did a damn thing to instigate, or commit a single crime. My impression after two decades in Japan dealing with them (even reporting the abuse to the koaniinkai which didn’t do shit) is that they are dumb, lazy, racist, sexist bullies. I have found that they truly are far more dangerous than any criminal you might pass by in Japan, and fully able to ruin your life for a checkbox tick in their file if they decide to.
It is at the point that I have minor anxiety attacks when I pass by them or they are near. Therapy didn’t do shit for the aftermath of what I have been through, and any mention of the trouble gets dismissed or justified in the most absurd ways by counselors and some friends. I’ve learned not to even mention anything. I have a great job, I have a house and family, but even going out in the area causes me stress for the concern I may have to deal with even more bullshit from the police—however unreasonable that may seem to those that have not had the experiences I have had. Again, I have not been lucky, and frequently have been targeted. (No, I don’t stand out more than any other foreigner, not even a tattoo)
**What can I do? What can I do to keep myself safe, other than avoiding them? What can I do to protect myself legally, other than remembering the damn phrases to confirm it is shokushitu and asking to leave, etc.?** My Japanese is a bit above a low JLPT1. I would be deeply thankful to any practical and effective advice on dealing with such matters, especially if anyone else has been unlucky enough to have numerous, deeply negative experiences with the cops here.
Thank you.
23 comments
Disclaimer: this is not legal advice
The advise I’ve been given. If harass and you got time, sit down, do nothing, say nothing. Never voluntary accompany them to the station. edit: if you got a bag hug it so they can’t search it.
I’ve been lucky that I never had bad encounter.
Edit 2: you’re required to show them your residence card. You have the right to refuse to answer questions and/or searches. They need a warrant to search you. Refusing to be search is probably enough for them to get a warrant, however it’s unlikely they will go that length.
Accidentally touching a officer can be considered assult and is enough for an arrest. This is where sitting down comes in play. It’s much harder for them to get probable cause to arrest you if you’re sitting and aren’t moving.
They will mostlikey call backup and apply alot of pressure for you to accompany them to the station. They may do this for hours on end but under no circumstances should you volunteer to go to the station with them. The 23 days detainment doesn’t start till they arrest you. Voluntary accompany them allows them to hold you even longer.
However if they get a warrant or they arrest you, you’re required to comply.
With that being said the best way is to just be polite and let them do their thing.
I don’t know if this will help at all.
[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2022/08/18/issues/police-questioning-japan/](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2022/08/18/issues/police-questioning-japan/)
Can you describe your physical appearance?
I’ve been here a year and my wife is black… though I am Asian I don’t look Japanese. My wife definitely doesn’t fit with the Japanese by appearance at all but none of us has been stopped for anything. How are people getting stopped by police? What are the foreigners doing that’s causing police to get them harassed. Would like to get some insight on this?
(Not saying the Japanese police are not racist or anything but how do people just get stopped by police if they aren’t acting stupid?) I also would like to let my wife know to be careful if she were to get into other peoples shoes if she does get stopped.
Unfortunately….there isn’t much you can do
One of my friends is a detective for the local police
and another one was a regular patrol person up until last year when she became a teacher
I have asked them both in detail about this, and the best answer I have gotten is….just be polite, and cooperate…..because you essentially have no right to stop them
They need a ‘sufficient reason’ to stop…..and ‘lately there have been a lot of foreigners doing this thing in this area’ counts as a sufficient reason
One of the disadvantages of Japan being so safe, is that police still need to show that they are ‘working’ by ‘dealing with’ problems on a semi-regular basis. So if a cop shows up to work everyday for 2 weeks and his little notebook is totally blank, the bosses start thinking…hey are you doing anything? Like at all?
So they pull over foreign people.
A few weeks ago I got stopped while driving, and the guy just said hey you know a lot of foreign people just drive without licenses so…..can I see yours……..ooo wow you have a license, but also since we’re here, I have heard a lot of young folk are just carrying around knives lately….do you mind if I search your car? Oooo look, no knives, hey….I had also heard that marijuana is legal in America, so do you mind if I check your pockets?
Hey no marijuana, so you’re just a law abiding foreign person in Japan….where you going?
Work
Why?
To work
O
Alright, well I hope we didn’t make you late!
Not much to be done about it
I am Indian and have dark brown skin and have lived here for years, but I rarely get hassle except twice (one for search for drugs while walking through a party area that also had lots of gay bars (drugs are common in gay areas apparently), and another when the police stop for stolen cycle checks; Japanese are subject to both regularly as well and I see more Japanese getting stopped). Remember that Japanese also get subject to the strictness of the police there, and this is what keeps Japan so much safer and livable than the likes of San Francisco or Paris. Police are rarely out to get you and in both situations above the stops are routine and enforced usually for ethnically Japanese people.
Maybe this will go against the response you are expecting but have you tried being well behaved and not awkward around law enforcement? If you comply then they will know you have no trouble.
Its not just Japan, but a lot of these police issues people put out on the internet tend to be the person doing something adversely wrong around police officers, often out of some fearful predisposition.
Sure, there are asshole officers out there but a lot of people are claiming to roll 1 on a D20 several times in a row, and then I have reasonable suspicion that they are acting in a way that they don’t want to admit to online.
Sad from hear that :/
I had a issue with an officer in Nagayama Sta. (Tokyo) that he came to me twice asking my papers in less than 2 weeks. All the time this mf grab me I was heading to the Konbini after a hard day of work. I had no problem so I cooperate everytime the police asked me questions but now everytime I go to that station I got my eyes if this officer is not wandering around because he clearly doesn’t have anything better to do so he stop everybody in the Sta (specially if somebody doesn’t look japanese)
Honestly sounds like they just hate you and are out to get you. Especially if you’ve been in the area for a while.
Not sure if this would help you at this stage but for any others, what I used to do when I first moved into an area is go to a koban and ask a question like “hey what are the laws about carrying a surfboard in town” or something to that extent. They’d explain it to me and we’d banter a bit. I’d introduce myself and tell them how long I had been here.
After that, I’d just greet cops id see on the street and be polite. At the very least I didn’t want to be harassed/stopped by the police in the place I live. After a while most would know me and sometimes wave etc.
Never had problems with em when I did this. Black man.
What has actually been happening in you encounters with them?
I’ve only been stopped once. Just showed them my residence card, had a quick chat about where I was from and that was it. No harassment or anything. No offence intended but if you’re cordial with them and just talk to them that may help. I know they do have a reputation and some can just be dicks regardless, but being belligerent certainly isn’t going to help.
Aside from that, you could try getting to know them. If your local cops know you I’d assume they’d be less likely to target you for being an unknown foreigner. Plus if you do end up on friendly terms with any of them, that gives you somebody to contact/ask for if any other cops give you trouble.
I feel for you. I am a black male, average height, with a slightly athletic build. In my first 5 years living in Japan, I was stopped and questioned by the police more than 15 times at the station closest to my home. I felt a sense of doom every day when I came home from work. After having enough and feeling literally traumatized from the nonstop questioning, I went to my local Koban and calmly explained to them my frustrations and asked what I could do to stop it.
They apologized, scanned a copy of my residence card and pinned a note detailing my complaint on their office bulletin board. After that, I stopped getting questioned in my neighborhood.
Here’s a few tips I’ve found useful.
1. Do not make eye contact with police officers. Pretend they do not exist.
2. If you do make eye contact, do not avert your eyes quickly.
3. If it’s happening near your home, I totally suggest going to the local koban to speak with them (bringing a Japanese partner or friend will definitely help). Even casually introducing yourself and telling them about your background may help.
Man that must suck. To have been here so long and still have to deal with that shit.
I can only surmise that either 1) you live in or frequent areas with a high crime rate attributed to a group with which you share a common appearance or 2) you are a dead ringer for Bob Marley, walking around in your own personal cloud of marijuana smoke.
I’m cynically joking around maybe, but in all seriousness without you letting us know what you’ve been targetted *for*, it’s hard to recommend a course of action. Taking you at your word that you have broken no laws, then you need to stop doing whatever you are doing that’s getting you red-flagged. Because no, the police don’t target people relentlessly in the way you described *just* because of their skin color. Appearance, location, demeanor… it all factors in. So stop looking, behaving, and being in the place where the police will conclude you are up to no good.
Leaving Japan would end any further conflict between the Japanese police and yourself. Probably not the answer you want but it’s going to stop the “harassment”.
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I hope you find your way to a better situation soon.
This is clearly a big burden on you, and there’s just no way for any of us internet strangers to assess whether you, as an Internet stranger, are a totally innocent victim of a horrible system, whether you’re taking annoying but ordinary stuff out of proportion, or whatever else. You’re being pretty cagey about it, so there’s not much for us to go on.
But our evaluation of your experience also doesn’t matter. Your experience, either external or internal, is clearly an outlier, but there’s not much we can say to it. You’ve apparently already tried reporting at least one issue. You’ve apparently tried therapy. You’ve been here 20 years and you’ve put more mental energy into this than almost anyone; you must know there’s no magic phrase or police-repelling spray that just solves this.
Given how much this is weighing on you, I can only suggest thinking in terms of Loyalty, Voice, and Exit.
When an organization is moving in a way you dislike, you always have three basic options:
You can stay Loyal, putting up with the things you don’t like. You accept the tradeoffs, and while they’re annoying, they’re worthwhile. You quietly grumble a little, but you get over it and don’t spend much time worrying about the thing that makes you unhappy.
You can use Voice, trying to make changes though legal channels, activism, etc. You might win, you might not, but you’re doing a thing. This gives you a psychological outlet for your discontent that could be productive, even if you don’t succeed in overthrowing the Japanese policing system.
You can Exit. You can’t change the situation, your attempts at Voice aren’t sufficient to solve your unhappiness, and you can’t let it go and tolerate the situation with Loyalty. All you can do is pack up your bags and go somewhere else where hopefully the same problems do not exist.
Ultimately, different flavors of these three are your only healthy options. Staying but passively hating your situation is just a slow kind of death that makes your life and the lives of people around you awful.
So all I can recommend is that you pick your plan and execute it. Commit to Loyalty because of job/family/whatever, become a crusader, or GTFO. I dunno which is right for you, but those are your options.
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First of all, even Japanese people are often questioned by the police. If you are asked a question, answer honestly without being defiant. And if you still feel uneasy, take a video.
It is not illegal.
There are certain people in Japan, such as Punk, who film the police and harass them. This is because it is not illegal at all to talk abusively or to film as long as you do not touch the police.
I feel sorry for the police when I see such videos.
Get a lawyer. I was harassed by an old guy in the neighborhood for a period of time. He would get drunk and throw things at my house in the middle of the night while shouting. The police would come but then side with the old guy. Long story short, I ended up hiring a lawyer and threatened the police and the old guy with a lawsuit if he didn’t back off. It worked and they stopped the harassment, but who knows in your situation. First step is talking to a lawyer.
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Unfortunately no advice but I fully agree with your sentiment – id feel safer without police here. Theyre not here to help ppl like us. Id rather deal with criminals by myself (have to anyway) i hate them as a group more than any other group of anyone ive ever met. And the stories i hear of what is possible for them to do to me and my life is honestly the scariest part about living in japan
Im sorry to hear this, I just had a good experience with Japan’s finests.
Last Friday I decided to do something random so I picked a random city near lake Biwako, and decided to sleep on the beach under the stars (on a bedsheet, I know very hobo ish). It was a bit cold surprisingly during night but I could get some sleep, however in the morning I was waken up by a police officer asking me if everythings alright. I told him I just came for some adventure and I ll be leaving soon, he asked for my ID, made sure im not fainted and that I am doing fine/not doing anything illegal, then we had an idle chat and he left. Im not really sure if sleeping randomly outdoors is legal in Japan but this gentleman had no issue with it, it was a really nice experience.
(26 years old Caucasian male from Eastern Europe, with fluent Japanese skill. I wonder if I was a different ethnic group what kind of treatment I would receive though)
To be honest, I have been in this situation before.
I have encountered Japanese police on many occassions and it has always been at best neutral if not just downright negative.
Even near my job, there is a police box along the road that I use to go home. I have been living in this place for 2 years, and have walked the same route everyday same time. And then they just randomly stop me, asked me if I had any drugs or weapons on me, and then after searching through my entire bag, they had the entire nerve to see a Japanese book and try to make conversation with me.
So I can definitely say I feel that nervousness. And I have to walk by them daily. Especially since if I turn the corner and try to avoid them that can also look like I am the one who is suspicious “you saw the cops and ran, you are up to something”.
At least for now, the only thing I did was lawyer up. I got the card of my company’s lawyer and learned my rights here in Japan. That greatly helped with the anxiety. And I also learned that you can record your encounters (please double check this information). So if there are times when you feel like something is going wrong, press record on your phone and put it in your pocket. And you will have a lot more evidence in your favor.
I don’t think the anxiety will ever go away, but facing it head-on has changed me.
If all else fails, you could try going hard. I saw a video of shokumu shitsumon on a couple of Uyoku Dantai guys in a truck. Those dudes started filming and just gave the cops absolute hell. Six cops later, the cops just wanted to leave, but the Uyoku guys were having none of it. Kept the cops there for another couple of hours. This literally jams them up hard, throwing the rest of the days schedule into chaos. Imagine having to explain to the boss that you wasted six hours on one stop, and accomplished nothing for the shift.
If you have your shit together legally (nothing to be arrested for) and you can manage to burn their six-hour shokumu shitsumon period down every time, they’ll get tired of screwing with you. Consent to tyranny has never resulted in less tyranny.
Or leave. Because seriously…those are your only two options based on the limited info you’re supplying.