Possible jobs in Japan as a Police officer?

13 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **Possible jobs in Japan as a Police officer?**

   Hello, my family and I are really interested in moving to Japan and my wife is a teacher so shell probably have no issues finding a job; however as a Police officer I don’t think there’s much options since I know you have to be a citizen to become a cop in Japan.

   What would be my options?

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2. How good is your Japanese?

3. > What would be my options?

   What are your skills/pedigree besides being a police officer?

4. 1.) Japanese Citizen (as you’ve mentioned)
   2.) Aged 18-30
   3.) Native Fluency in Japanese (high school graduate level = passed N1)

   It’s basically impossible to become a Police Officer (or any public services position) as a foreign national. The only exception I can think of is if you came as a child, went to school in Japan, and naturalized early.

5. Not fluent in Japanese but currently learning. I basically asking what can I do other than police? Maybe security? Or work at the airport? Just looking into it atm?

6. Security guard for construction sites at night. Road construction flag waiver, janitorial support staff, English teacher, recruiter.

   I’m not sure if there is any option on the military bases with SOFA, or perhaps private security company working with foreigners that come in… just being creative.

7. PIs are huge business in Japan.

8. I worked with a former cop who was a really fantastic salesman / account manager. He was from a country where the cops use a lot less firepower than others, so he was really skilled at negotiation, conflict de-escalation and resolution, understanding others’ points of view, etc., all skills that are useful in sales.

9. To be a government worker u need to be Japanese pretty much.

10. I have family who are police officers in Japan. without fluent Japanese you have 0 chance. Even with fluent Japanese I doubt it would be easy.

    Your best bet is getting a conversational level of Japanese and working for a security company. This also might take some searching though

11. Ah police officer, the most useless job in Japan

12. >my wife is a teacher so she’ll probably have no issues finding a job

    Basically, everything hangs of your wife’s ability to work in Japan at a living wage for two people because you only qualify for a Dependent Visa you will limit you to 28 hours/week in bottom of the barrel, low-wage jobs.
    Many English teaching jobs pay such a low amount — below 220,00 yen^{$1,454USD} /month or even less– that your wife could not qualify to sponsor you for a Dependent Visa. However, the English teaching industry in Japan is cursed and would drive a real teacher crazy (it’s a gap year job for unskilled kids in their 20s with bachelor’s degrees).

    If your wife wants to kick back and take a gap year(s) teaching English in Japan, she could apply to the government’s boondoggle [JET program](https://jetprogramusa.org/) to be an ALT—Assistant Language Teacher. The JET program accepts a few married teachers with a dependent spouse.

    If your wife has solid teaching experience of more than 3~5 years and has a Masters in Ed degree is a STEM subject, she could try to get one of the hyper-competitive jobs at a [legit international school](https://www.jcis.jp/) that would pay better— more than 400,000yen^{$2,644USD} /month.

    If your wife has a Masters ^{or ^Phd} in English Education or TEFL/TESL, three published papers, and university teaching experience, she could *try* to get a better job teaching at a university—which is also highly competitive and often require Japanese abilities for endless, boring staff meetings.

13. Why not get into security or private investigation? I think police officers here are reserved for Japanese born citizens