ABSTRACT
In the Reform Police Law passed by the Diet in 1954 the police were reorganized along prefectural lines, with the general management of the system under a national Public Safety Commission. The Japanese approach to the maintenance of public order places more emphasis on the Confucian notion of using social pressure to ensure proper behavior than on the coercive power of police. The crime rate has increased steadily; in 2002 the offenses dealt with by police increased 3.1 percent. The criminal justice system relies on "confession, repentance, and absolution" rather than punishment in the form of fines or imprisonment. The use of state police powers to maintain standards of morality or to prevent and punish immorality is little in evidence in Japan. The Japanese tolerance of vice and victimless crime is not the result of moral bankruptcy. The Recruit scandal of the late 1980s involved less illegal activity than what was widely regarded as political corruption.
