Crime Prevention - Japanese Style The political theorist Albert Jay Nock once said: " It can not even be said that the State has ever shown any disposition to suppress crime, but only to safeguard its own monopoly of crime." If this is the case, the Japanese governments system of local police boxes has been very successful at achieving this goal. This paper will discuss the area of criminology to which police boxes are particularly relevant, for then to frame a hypothesis that a similar system in America would help reduce crime. Finally, an experimental design will be drawn up to enable a potential testing of the effectiveness of police boxes, or kobans as they are known in Japan. It is likely Albert J. Nock had social control theory in mind when making the above comment, this as the theory focuses on techniques and strategies that regulate human behaviour and lead to conformity or obedience to societys rules. The logic is that a person is less likely to become a criminal if he is involved and committed to conventional activities and values. This paper is generally concerned with the formal system of social control, specifically the legal system, laws and law enforcement. Additionally, various cultural deviance theories are of interest, as for example social disorganisation theory, which focuses on the disintegration of conventional values due to industrialisation, increased immigration and urbanisation. A direct result of these processes can be high crime, and some believe that police boxes can contribute to subcultures not becoming deviant. To understand how a koban can reduce crime in society, though, an understanding of its functions has to be reached. It turns out that the services performed are much more advanced than what one would derive from the meaning of the word police box. Much of the credit for Japans low crime rate is given to the countrys vast network of community-based, crime control organisations operating in everything from schools to prisons. The kobans function on a similar level, and every Japanese police graduate has to serve for several years at one of these mini police stations. Japans approximately 15,000 kobans receive about 50 per cent of the total number of public requests for assistance, and the police officers stationed at kobans also make twice yearly visits to every home and business in the area. Kobans have proven to be extremely effective in Japan, and were in 1989 responsible for 73 per cent of all arrests. According to a UN study, there are three main reasons behind the success of the Japanese kobans. One is that the system is deeply rooted in historically well-organised communities, while another is that the Japanese police in general is trusted by the people. Lastly, the comprehensive training program Japanese police men have to go through is very unique in its thoroughness. Still, it is worth asking if police boxes could prove effective in crime prevention also in foreign countries. The following experimental design can, if implemented, test the probability of similar success in the U.S. In Japan, every koban serves an average of 8,604 people. Police boxes in urban areas serve more people than rural ones, while the average number of police officers on duty is in the proximity of two or three. There is, in fact, a neighbourhood police station within six or seven blocks of every urban resident in Japan. Obviously, the country has a much more urban population than the U.S., and it is therefore valid to assume that the Japanese koban system most successfully can be adopted into an urban setting.
Considering a potential implementation of the koban system in the U.S., the unit of analysis should be a neighbourhood of around six to seven blocks. The exact size will depend on the population density of an area, as it is essential that the police officers on duty are able to patrol their district in a sufficient manner. As the effect of a koban generally is limited to the neighbourhood it is to serve, researchers should not have big problems comparing the effects of a koban with an area not affected by the koban. Still, I would advice the opening of several kobans within a specific area, this as an isolated koban will not be enough to reflect the ideas behind the Japanese system. Implementing kobans in all of Manhattan would, for example, make for more accurate study than would a study of only a part of Manhattan. As police officers stationed at kobans, in addition to other community services, make twice yearly visits to all homes and businesses in their neighbourhood, results from the experiment can not be drawn immediately. Until the people in the neighbourhood get used to the koban and the police officers working there, the koban will not be able to serve its primary function, which is to work with the local community to reduce crime. One way to test the suitability of the koban system would be to find to relatively similar areas of New York, both in terms of demographics, crime and other variables. They should also be sufficiently far apart, this so that the implementation of the koban system in one part of the city will not have an indirect effect on the area of the city not affected. It would then be possible to compare the two areas, something that could be done after a 1-year, 2-year and 5-year period. To evaluate the koban system, researchers can evidently turn to crime statistics and see how the area with police boxes fared against controlled areas without kobans. Additionally, feedback from the neighbourhood should also be taken into account, this as public satisfaction should be of utmost importance to the police. If the public believes that policing has indeed improved after the implementation of the koban program, this may be a positive sign for a future decrease in crime. Still, to strengthen a theory, similar research designs have to be implemented again, this as one test by itself is not enough to prove a theory right. Especially, the experiment should be tried in several different environments, this to test the external validity of the results. If the kobans should prove successful, the American government may, according to Nock, have found another way to strengthen its monopoly of crime. Bibliography
Freda Adler, Gerhard Mueller, William Laufer. Criminology and the Criminal Justice System. (New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2001) Bailey, David. gThe State Of Art In Community Policing - An InternationalPerspective.h University at Albany. Retrieved April 15, 2001: http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/05/bayley.pdf Koban And Chuzaisho. Retrieved April 15, 2001: http://jin.jcic.or.jp/stat/stats/14CRM12.html Panos Media Briefing Contents. Retrieved April 15, 2001: http://www.oneworld.org/panos/briefing/crime.htm Quotes On Crime. Retrieved April 15, 2001: http://www.freedomsnest.com/cgi-bin/q.cgi?subject=crime UNCHS Forum. Retrieved April 15, 2001: http://www.unchs.org/unchs/english/hdmar98/forum1.htm |
