Some observations on Japanese and American policing

The highly successful Japanese and less than successful American policing situations were compared in terms of: historical background, police organization and format, cultural environment, social-cultural background of officers. training, police socialization, and general nature of policing. Positive influences upon Japanese policing were found to be: the nature of the Japanese people; their deliberate recruitment of ideal police candidates—especially recruiting from samurai families; the highly respected paternalistic and benevolent image in Japan of the police as governmental officials; their deliberate socialization of officers into the police fraternity by using pride. duty, and responsibility to ensure professionalism; and their very extensive and thorough academy training in continuity with later field training and performance. It was suggested that in the United States we begin to address our problems in both selection and training by formulating and then enforcing national guidelines similar to those in Japan.