23 ms·

As crime dries up, Japan’s police hunt for things to do (2017)

201 points by tareqak 7y ago

RickJWagner 7y ago
Wow, that is awesome! We (USA here) can learn some things from Japan.
- umvi 7y ago
  I'd like to see how busy Japan's police would be if they were more accepting of refugees, immigrants, and foreigners. Japan's high degree of order works because everybody is culturally on the same page. If you throw trash on the ground, 100% of the people around you will give you a disapproving look. Inject millions of immigrants into their society to upset their homogeneous cultural order and I bet the police would be a lot more busy.
  - bastian 7y ago
    This absolutely has to be the single most idiotic thing i've read on Hacker News ever. This argument is so broad that there is almost no way to even try to counter it in any meaningful way.
    - golemiprague 7y ago
      It's not different from the argument that "diversity is our strength", there is no support for that either. It seems like homogenous societies can function very well and have certain advantages(and maybe also disadvantages) comparing to diverse societies. But in the current climate in the west saying it is a heresy.
    - hombre_fatal 7y ago
      I wouldn't rush to dismiss tribalism as a bad thing for society. Homogeneity is like any tradeoff: upsides and downsides. Japan is as homogenous as they come.
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        I wouldn't rush to assume that immigrants and refugees drive crime. One thing that hands down drives crime is racist policing.
    - scarejunba 7y ago
      Haha, it's a just-so story, yeah.
  - Aperocky 7y ago
    At the same time, lack of foreign talent caused their innovation to stagnate - as compared to the United States for instance.
    - matz1 7y ago
      Well, everything has trade off.
      - ravenstine 7y ago
        Exactly. Having a common culture and set of values seems more important to them than innovation.
        matz1 7y ago
        Which is not necessarily bad thing.
    - Spooky23 7y ago
      Stagnate or stabilize? History will ultimately be the judge, but I truly worry about the sustainability of many things in the US. I grew up in a rural area of New York, which is basically rotting away. I worked on a farm as a kid that was continuously operated since the 1680s that is suddenly not viable. Life is great for my family, thanks to good education, luck, and good decisions, but I worry about my kids’ future.
      - Aperocky 7y ago
        If your kids going to be a farmer and only a farmer, I think it's quite right to worry about it. Innovation is not constrained in one country - whatever happens elsewhere will be felt, the only difference is where the benefits end up.
  - slothtrop 7y ago
    By virtue of a more rapidly increasing population, maybe. The interesting thing about Japan is the poverty level is estimated to be relatively high. In general we see that crime scales with poverty, but not as much there. That should be subject to more research.
    - fiblye 7y ago
      Wealth divide is incredibly low here. Japan’s poverty rate is among the lowest in the world. What are you talking about?
      - postscapes1 7y ago
        Article by Noah Smith on this. It's way hgher than I would have expected. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-30/u-s-economy-personal-bad-behavior-isn-t-what-causes-poverty https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-30/u-s-ec...
        SamReidHughes 7y ago
        Well that’s a stupid article. The operative words: “Defined by the percentage of the population earning less than half of the median national income”. In an absolute sense, Japan has no poverty.
      - slothtrop 7y ago
        I've seen estimates ranging from 15% to 19%. That's not low, it's higher than most developed countries. Seems to me the stabilizing effect of a stagnating population is the main reason.
  - squimmy 7y ago
    > If you throw trash on the ground, 100% of the people around you will give you a disapproving look. http://buzz-plus.com/article/2018/10/29/garbage-shibuya-halloween-news/ http://buzz-plus.com/article/2018/10/29/garbage-shibuya-hall...
  - baddox 7y ago
    Do you have any data supporting your suggestion that areas with more diverse populations tend to be less disapproving of littering?
  - pac39 7y ago
    Diversity is strength?
  - matz1 7y ago
    Likewise with gun. But I guess the US prefer their "freedom" more.
  - b_tterc_p 7y ago
    Technically true but kind of loaded statement. For most societies, including the states, immigrants will not increase the crime rate.
    - umvi 7y ago
      I don't know if that's completely true. Aren't many (most?) of the organized crime groups historically immigration-based in the US? The American Mafia was started by Italian immigrants in NYC, MS-13 by El Salvadorian immigrants in Los Angeles, etc.? I mean, we have MS-13 problems even here in Washington DC due to the large El Salvadorian population. I would wager if Japan allowed as many El Salvadorians into Japan as made it into the US, they would start having MS-13 problems too (but maybe not; Japan authorities pretty much decimated the Yakuza last I read).
      - Spooky23 7y ago
        They get a lot of play and operate in the open. The KKK and bootleggers of early NASCAR fame were red blooded Americans.
      - CapricornNoble 7y ago
        The yakuza is still alive and well.[1] They keep a lower profile now than during Japan's boom times, much like the mafia in the US today. I dunno about MS-13 per se, but I've definitely run into an outsized share of sketchy central and south American immigrants in nightclubs in Osaka. A Canadian DJ friend of mine (long-time Osaka resident, like 10+ years) cautioned me to avoid them. They had a reputation for violence, stabbings, etc... [1]NSFW Google search: "site:tokyoreporter.com yakuza". TokyoReporter is my favorite English-language Japan news source; they cover all the seedy shit like ex-porn stars getting busted for drugs.
    - notjtrig 7y ago
      1 out of 8 young people turning 20 in Tokyo were not born in Japan, they have 2.2 million foreigners living in Japan, or 1.76% of the population.
      - 7y ago
- codesushi42 7y ago
  The grass is always greener. But in the case of the US, it usually is when the grass is the rest of the developed world, sadly. After staying in Japan, there is no doubt that I would live there if I were Japanese. It is even a consideration as a non-Japanese. Quality of life seems to be a lot better there, even if there aren't as many job opportunities.
  - mutt2016 7y ago
    Quality if life seems better everywhere when you are a tourist. I think people in the USA work crazy hours and take no vacations. How does Japan compare?
    - tmm84 7y ago
      The people/times when I seen crazy hours worked are those doing paperwork or working on a death march for some project they didn't think when accepting it.
    - codesushi42 7y ago
      IMO from what I have heard from folks working at Japanese offices of big tech companies: people work harder in SV.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - ghaff 7y ago
      >I think people in the USA work crazy hours and take no vacations. You may think that but it's far from universal, including in the tech industry. [ADDED: The US does rank fairly low on average on the amount of vacation people take but Japan is as low or lower.]
    - astrange 7y ago
      In Japan you stay in the office all day and night, not because you're doing work but because everyone is too self-conscious to be the first to leave. This is less true for the newer generation, especially since they don't have full time jobs in the first place.
- alexgmcm 7y ago
  Doesn't Japan have a generation with extremely poor job prospects due to the 'lost decade' etc.?
mc32 7y ago
Tell you what. Check on the elderly sole survivors who don’t have anyone checking up on them. Bring some community to them. Help them with their emergencies, things they have difficulty executing.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Incentives matter. You must enforce this from the top down, that law enforcement will be measured by community engagement. Action and results will follow.
- andrewstuart 7y ago
  That's the job of a social worker, a different kind of government employee.
  - cperciva 7y ago
    It is a different job, but should it be? Why can't they be cross-trained? In Vancouver, the police are on the front lines of helping the homeless / drug addicted / mentally ill population (there's a very large overlap between the three groups) access shelters and treatment.
    - magduf 7y ago
      I can't speak to Japanese police, but in America you wouldn't want our police doing any kind of social work. The police here are just bullies who have been given badges and guns, and are exactly the wrong personality for any job that requires compassion. Moreover, they're extremely trigger-happy and are well-known to shoot people who are having mental health episodes.
  - rdl 7y ago
    Maybe for substantive interactions, but merely going on patrol and ringing doorbell/greeting elderly who have opted in to the service wouldn't require very much. If they are literally without things to do, this would be one of the least destructive things they could do.
gen3 7y ago
Initially I thought this was really good, and it really is. I will say, some of the crimes investigated seem to be a waste of time and money. for example > In one recent case, she says, they arrested a group of people who had shared the cost of renting a car, deeming the arrangement an illegal taxi. and > One woman describes how five officers crowded into her cramped apartment after she reported her knickers being swiped from a clothesline. I hope there has been a push to use this manpower in other, better ways (such as how the article mentioned they were better handling domestic abuse).
hanoz 7y ago
Heaven save us from law makers and enforcers with too much time on their hands.
- wst_ 7y ago
  You would have to have society that creates such situation in the first place. Honestly, I'd rather choose that kind of society among others.
- growlist 7y ago
  Or policing hurty tweets rather than chasing rapists.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
I've lived on an American military base with a crime rate so low that the military police spent months determined to track down some guy who robbed the liquor store because it was the most exciting thing that had happened in ages. There can be a real downside to police officers overzealously looking for someone to bust just to have something to do.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  You'd think they could come up with something constructive. Have the officers do community service among the residents while on the clock and in uniform. You'll have even less crime that way.
  - steve19 7y ago
    What makes you think there would be less crime when the crime rate is already very low? Spending less money on police and more on things such as social welfare will probably do more for crime than getting them to plant trees or whatever.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    On a military base, it's not so bad. They genuinely need to police drunk driving because you have a lot of young people with decent incomes on their own for the first time. Most American military bases are pretty aggressive about policing traffic issues, and it's apparently all to the good. They do things like place some crumpled car as a billboard somewhere prominent to remind you daily what your car might look like if you drive drunk, then post a count that gets updated daily "Days since last deadly accident" or something like that. And on the base in question, we had on base housing. One of the duties of the police was to let you in your house if you locked yourself out accidentally. (I did once.) But this article starts with a stake out actively trying to tempt someone to steal something. It's essentially entrapment, or not far from it.
    - tjohns 7y ago
      That's not entrapment. At least in the US, entrapment has to pass two tests: 1. Was it a crime the suspect was unlikely or unwilling to commit otherwise? (The "subjective" test.) 2. Did the actions of officers cause a normally law-abiding person to commit a crime? (The "objective" test.) In other words, entrapment is when the police actively cause somebody to commit a crime they wouldn't have otherwise committed in similar circumstances. In the article, the police just left a case of beer inside a car. The police created a passive opportunity, but that's not enough for entrapment... the act of steeling that beer was entirely self meditated.
paulcole 7y ago
Teach them to code?
doodliego 7y ago
They should create some squads to work on cold case files.
bjourne 7y ago
That is a common trend in all kinds of enforcement jobs. As the number of rule breakers gets lower, the rules get tougher to compensate. For police officers, security guards and bouncers it means that they will intervene in less and less serious offences. But it appears it works the same in other kinds of professions too. For example, dental health is improving around the world so dentists are spending more of their time with cosmetic issues because fewer patients have holes in their teeth. It's even the same in software development. What do you do when there are no major bugs to fix? You spend your time fixing all the minor irrelevant issues! I think the empirical evidence is soundly against the idea of people being lazy. People will always find stuff to do because almost no one likes rolling their thumbs all day.
- rodgerd 7y ago
  > What do you do when there are no major bugs to fix? You spend your time fixing all the minor irrelevant issues! Frameworks, frameworks everywhere.
  - BigJono 7y ago
    Nothing kills time as effectively as a nice casual game of dependency jenga.
- rv-de 7y ago
  There just aren't any important and big problems left to solve - I suppose we are born into a very lucky century </sarcasm>
- vincent-toups 7y ago
  "It's even the same in software development. What do you do when there are no major bugs to fix?" ... Where do you work?
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    And where do we send our resumes?
lacampbell 7y ago
That sounds amazing. Here in provincial NZ officers won't even respond to a car crash or minor violent crimes, because they're so understaffed. I can go a month without seeing them. I have zero faith in police to deal with the large anti-social behaviour here, and it's made me dislike having to be in public. If you're a criminal come to NZ. You can rob any shop you want, no one has guns, and police departments won't bother with you even if the victims have your face on camera.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Why is this voted down. Just wondering.
  - lacampbell 7y ago
    I assume it's because I pointed out shop owners not having guns makes them easier targets. Also a lot of wealthy americans tend to fetishize New Zealand as a place they can 'escape' to every time a republican becomes president - so maybe this ruins the image they have of it.
    - northwest65 7y ago
      Funny isn't it, that they think they would be welcome because they vote blue... New Zealanders tend to consider Americans undesirable immigrants regardless of their political beliefs.
  - brohee 7y ago
    Because the feeling doesn't match the crime solving statistics, at all.
    - lacampbell 7y ago
      If a crime occurs and people don't even bother reporting it because minor incidents never get looked to, how does that show up in the crime solving statistics?
- 7y ago
andrewstuart 7y ago
End the war on drugs and alot of the police work will vanish. In the U.S. they'll need to sort out the opiate crisis which frankly is weird to see anyway because it's the corporations who are the drug barons.
- newfriend 7y ago
  Drugs are highly illegal in Japan, yet there is no major drug crisis -- which seems to indicate that it's a cultural problem, and not related to enforcement and illegality. It could even be argued that extremely harsh punishments for drug related crimes could act as a deterrent.
  - Nursie 7y ago
    > Drugs are highly illegal in Japan, yet there is no major drug crisis Arguably Japan is rife with benzodiazepine abuse, several varieties of which can just be bought and consumed freely there.
  - soulofmischief 7y ago
    The popular illegal drugs may be, but it's common to see physical vendors peddling research chemicals which aren't scheduled in Japan.
  - newsgremlin 7y ago
    I don't know if there has ever been a major drug crisis, Japan has a long history of using cannabis for hemp based products but the use of it recreationaly wasn't really a concern domestically. Though the figures around drug use and overdose might be under-reported, even Japanese doctors will report drug use to the police thus deterring people from being honest. The pressure to ban cannabis outright came from US influences when Japanese legislation was passed in 1948, meth infact is actually the most used illicit drug today.
  - socialdemocrat 7y ago
    Yes culture is a major part of it, which is why you need to compare similar countries. Among western countries those with more liberal drug laws tend to have less problems. Compare e.g. the Netherlands, Switzerland and Portugal with the US. In my native Norway, punishment for almost anything is quite mild including drug related crime. Yet drug usage is much lower than in the US. We are all more similar to the US than Japan, being all derived from European culture.
mevile 7y ago
Can anyone read this article? It's behind a paywall for me.
- chihuahua 7y ago
  I don't understand why an article is posted that's behind a hard paywall.
  - grzm 7y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html > "Are paywalls ok?" > "It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds." > "In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic."
- dave_aiello 7y ago
  I agree. I can't get to any more than the first two paragraphs of the body of the article.
- jiberwarrior 7y ago
  You can quickly reload the page, and stop it before the JS for the paywall loads (esc on pc) The HTML loads but not the js that implements the paywall.
  - kalleboo 7y ago
    If you have Safari's reader mode set to activate automatically, it will also kick in and grab the content before the JS engages the paywall.
    - xhgdvjky 7y ago
      this is good to know. thanks
- pardavis 7y ago
dave_aiello 7y ago
Was this article written before or after the Kyoto Animation Studio fire, https://comicbook.com/anime/2019/07/18/kyoto-animation-studio-arson-attack-japanese-officials-report-33-dead-anime/ https://comicbook.com/anime/2019/07/18/kyoto-animation-studi... ?
AIyosha 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan
Animats 7y ago
(2017)
rubyn00bie 7y ago
I honestly don’t know why police don’t first and foremost do social work, helping out their communities (visiting elderly, helping folks with disabilities, helping collect data, repair or fix ailing public facilities, etc) instead of putting them in jail and fining them. Call me crazy, but what a wonderful world that would be... if people saw a cop and thought “fuck yeah, this person is here to help me,” rather than “find or create a situation in which I’ve done something wrong and will be punished.” We are all long-term pretty fucked as long as we have institutions devoted to our worst selves. As another commenter said, we need to incentivize better behavior if we want it...
- zik 7y ago
  When I was a child I read picture story books which taught me that this was the purpose of police - to help citizens. They showed old ladies being helped across the road by humble bobbies and exhorted me to seek the nearest policeman if I ever became lost. In adulthood it didn't take too many encounters with actual police to realise that they don't see their purpose the same way AT ALL.
  - mnm1 7y ago
    Parents should be more responsible and teach their kids about police. One bad encounter can be the end of their child's life. Letting them read things like this without providing a realistic perspective is quite irresponsible, IMO. I grew up in a society where no one was deluded like this about the role of police. We all knew they were evil and out to hurt or kill us. Those lessons paid off after I moved to America. Here the cops are just as bad but many people kid themselves into thinking they are not. That's a delusional society.
    - amfsn 7y ago
      Cops in the US are out there to hurt you or kill you? Talk about delusional.
- heimatau 7y ago
  This would help with all the PTSD that cops face. The job is hard. This would humanize the trouble by reducing the stress in their work environment. Please keep advocating this idea, since it's novel but probably very effective to help society mend it's issues with law enforcement.
lovemenot 7y ago
Almost every evening a couple of officers stand at the end of my street in Tokyo. There they can easily catch motorists making an illegal right turn. The rule exists only at certain times of day making it very hard for motorists to comply. The police know this and just wait there like a bear fishing for spawning salmon. It seems so pointless. If the right turn is really a problem then mark it in such a way as to make compliance obvious. If not, then just allow it and stop enforcement.
- pardavis 7y ago
  I had one of these on my commute in Atlanta for a while. (Left turn) It was impossible to read the sign unless you came to a stop, at which point a cacophony of honking emerged from behind, whether it was the right time or not. At some point they added a little yellow light to indicate it was legal to turn. I was a little awestruck.
  - cladari 7y ago
    I got a speeding in a school zone ticket and fought it because the points for that offence are high. The sign gave times the speed limit was in effect but I missed it and there were no other cars on the road so I didn't have that as a reference either. My lawyer argued that if the time of day was required knowledge there should have been a clock installed under the sign or some other visual alert. I got off.
- exhilaration 7y ago
  My very first ticket, after I got my license in the mid-90's, was for the same thing -- but in Manhattan.
  - dnr 7y ago
    You lived in or near NYC and didn't know that right-on-red is illegal in the whole city, at all times? There's no possible confusion there (except maybe near the borders of the outer boroughs, but Manhattan is an island so pretty hard to claim you didn't know you were in the city).
spinach 7y ago
If they cared about women they would find lots of crime. Particularly on trains, so many women get groped and harassed.
spinach 7y ago
If they cared about women they would find lots of crime. Particularly on trains, so many women get groped and harassed. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/22/national/media-national/embracing-social-media-protect-others-danger-japan/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/22/national/media-...
- tdxcbkifxx 7y ago
  Since when is "harassing" someone a crime?
  - devm0de 7y ago
    I believe they’re referring to Chikan which is estimated to have happened to 2/3 of women who ride the train in Japan and the act violates several Japanese laws.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - qtplatypus 7y ago
    It is when the harassment is of sexual nature.
    - mruts 7y ago
      Actually all harassment is a crime in the US. Just insulting people and saying lewd things isn’t harassment, though.
      - sterwill 7y ago
        I don't think this is true. There are 50 states, each with different laws and definitions of acts and crimes. I am not aware of any federal anti-harassment laws except for those governing workplaces, and even those do not consider all harassment to be illegal.
    - 7y ago
grepgeek 7y ago
> Register to read this article in full: Sign up I don't want to create a new account to read an article? Is there any other option to read this article? I know one could say that if I don't want to create an account like the website wants, then I have no right to read the article. Yes, I understand that. I respect the website's owners' right to enforce access to the article however they please and I am okay to not read the article if there is truly no other way to read it without creating an account.
- pardavis 7y ago
  https://outline.com/www.economist.com/asia/2017/05/18/as-crime-dries-up-japans-police-hunt-for-things-to-do https://outline.com/www.economist.com/asia/2017/05/18/as-cri...
  - grepgeek 7y ago
    This is cool. I wonder how outline.com manages to get past the sign-up wall.
- jwilk 7y ago
  Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20190731093221/https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/05/18/as-crime-dries-up-japans-police-hunt-for-things-to-do https://web.archive.org/web/20190731093221/https://www.econo...
2bitencryption 7y ago
I was in a massively busy market street in Dotonbori, Osaka, at night. A police whistle shrieked, and I turned and saw a police officer absolutely booking it through the crowd, shoving through people, shouting at some perpetrator. My American-cultured brain thought, "This is it, someone's about to die." It seriously freaked me out. I watched, and he caught up to... a guy on a bike. It was a no-biking zone. He gave the guy a ticket.
- PinkMilkshake 7y ago
  I was in Japan for a month not long ago and one thing that stood out for me was police walking around with large wooden sticks. Many walked around with expandable police batons, casually fully expanded.
  - brokenmachine 7y ago
    I don't know where you're from but "casually fully expanded" sticks doesn't really sound so scary when police all have handguns, metal batons and tasers where I am. And I'm in relatively gun-free Australia.
  - CapricornNoble 7y ago
    Back when the bosozoku were more active (even 2012 was interesting compared to now), there were certain main streets that had a near-constant police presence between midnight and 4am on Saturday nights. The police would use those big staffs to knock the bikers off of their rides sometimes.
  - ezoe 7y ago
    Was that really a police? The way you describe, it sounds like private guard man protecting the cash transfer.
- odiroot 7y ago
  That is plain cute. I wish we had at least half as stringent enforcement of the laws here in Berlin.
NamTaf 7y ago
They could crack down on the touts fronting tourist scams in areas like Shinjuku? I'm sure there's a lot of less visible crime that occurs (in all cities around the world, not just in Japan), but it's harder to solve so it gets overlooked for easier, more straightforward crimes that return a better bang-for-buck.
- magduf 7y ago
  What are these tourist scams?
  - NamTaf 7y ago
    Touts (generally African immigrants) aggressively try to encourage you to come grab a drink with them, trying to be all friendly and acting shocked that you might not want to come with them when they want to shout you a drink in a bar. Once in the bar (who's in on it), the scam ranges from charging you way too much to buy ladies drinks, through to drugging and robbing you before dropping you home. They'll never get physical with you beyond getting really close in your personal space and trying to shake your hand, but if you don't acknowledge them and walk past them then they often don't even do that. Their target is young white male tourists with lots of cash who wanna get drunk and party with ladies. https://www.ski.com.au/xf/threads/tokyo-warning-specific-types-of-nightlife-unsafe-for-travelers.44284/ https://www.ski.com.au/xf/threads/tokyo-warning-specific-typ...
    - magduf 7y ago
      Good to know, thanks!
nkkollaw 7y ago
They should come to Europe, then. Plenty of crime here.
shard972 7y ago
Time to bring in 3rd world immigration then.
Temasik 7y ago
in singapore they use teenage to police the island
roland35 7y ago
Reading the "police blotters" in my quiet town's weekly paper is one of my favorite traditions. This week the police intervened when the wife played music the husband didn't like, so he unplugged the radio. The police did not charge anyone since there was no physical violence... Also some loose change was stolen from a car.
- roland35 7y ago
  Uh oh there was another loud music related police blotter this week! Someone yelled at a driver playing loud music and punched his car, leaving a dent. Both parties were charged with disorderly conduct.
- thomasjudge 7y ago
  The Flathead Beacon has some good ones too. Recent: July 18: "10:08 a.m. A Kalispell resident called 911 because she had read in the police blotter that law enforcement rescued a ferret and she was curious if she could have it. Police informed her that they did not keep the ferret." https://flatheadbeacon.com/section/police-blotter/ https://flatheadbeacon.com/section/police-blotter/
- lunchables 7y ago
  The best part is that it is more likely they just think they left change in the car but forgot they spent it.
gwbas1c 7y ago
The funniest thing I saw in recent memory was some Japanese tourists (in the US) break a law. They brought a bag lunch of sushi to the zoo, and sat down as a family to eat it at a picnic table. Shortly after they started eating their sushi, the parents proudly started drinking 24oz cans of Sapporo. Yes, the Japanese tourists were violating American drinking laws by drinking in public! (And, yes, I know that what they did is perfectly legal and culturally appropriate in Japan!)
blargmaster33 7y ago
Import some diversity and they will have things to do
roadbeats 7y ago
The article is missing a very important answer: do people get discriminated in the system after jail or prison time ? how fast do system organize court for a recently arrested “criminal”? These are realy important to judge the actions of the police.
a_c 7y ago
Being bombarded with Hong Kong news on Bloomberg [1], I am thinking perhaps Hong Kong took the other extreme. Having one of the lowest homicide rate in the world [2], the police is apparently turning against its citizen. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/search?query=hong%20kong https://www.bloomberg.com/search?query=hong%20kong [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...
fsurfer 7y ago
Unfortunately, this also means they can force "confessions" from people because they have little to do. https://www.vox.com/world/2015/12/13/9989250/japan-crime-conviction-rate https://www.vox.com/world/2015/12/13/9989250/japan-crime-con...

201 points by tareqak 7y ago

RickJWagner 7y ago

Wow, that is awesome! We (USA here) can learn some things from Japan.

umvi 7y ago
I'd like to see how busy Japan's police would be if they were more accepting of refugees, immigrants, and foreigners. Japan's high degree of order works because everybody is culturally on the same page. If you throw trash on the ground, 100% of the people around you will give you a disapproving look. Inject millions of immigrants into their society to upset their homogeneous cultural order and I bet the police would be a lot more busy.
- bastian 7y ago
  This absolutely has to be the single most idiotic thing i've read on Hacker News ever. This argument is so broad that there is almost no way to even try to counter it in any meaningful way.
  - golemiprague 7y ago
    It's not different from the argument that "diversity is our strength", there is no support for that either. It seems like homogenous societies can function very well and have certain advantages(and maybe also disadvantages) comparing to diverse societies. But in the current climate in the west saying it is a heresy.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    I wouldn't rush to dismiss tribalism as a bad thing for society. Homogeneity is like any tradeoff: upsides and downsides. Japan is as homogenous as they come.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      I wouldn't rush to assume that immigrants and refugees drive crime. One thing that hands down drives crime is racist policing.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    Haha, it's a just-so story, yeah.
- Aperocky 7y ago
  At the same time, lack of foreign talent caused their innovation to stagnate - as compared to the United States for instance.
  - matz1 7y ago
    Well, everything has trade off.
    - ravenstine 7y ago
      Exactly. Having a common culture and set of values seems more important to them than innovation.
      - matz1 7y ago
        Which is not necessarily bad thing.
  - Spooky23 7y ago
    Stagnate or stabilize? History will ultimately be the judge, but I truly worry about the sustainability of many things in the US. I grew up in a rural area of New York, which is basically rotting away. I worked on a farm as a kid that was continuously operated since the 1680s that is suddenly not viable. Life is great for my family, thanks to good education, luck, and good decisions, but I worry about my kids’ future.
    - Aperocky 7y ago
      If your kids going to be a farmer and only a farmer, I think it's quite right to worry about it. Innovation is not constrained in one country - whatever happens elsewhere will be felt, the only difference is where the benefits end up.
- slothtrop 7y ago
  By virtue of a more rapidly increasing population, maybe. The interesting thing about Japan is the poverty level is estimated to be relatively high. In general we see that crime scales with poverty, but not as much there. That should be subject to more research.
  - fiblye 7y ago
    Wealth divide is incredibly low here. Japan’s poverty rate is among the lowest in the world. What are you talking about?
    - postscapes1 7y ago
      Article by Noah Smith on this. It's way hgher than I would have expected. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-30/u-s-economy-personal-bad-behavior-isn-t-what-causes-poverty https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-30/u-s-ec...
      - SamReidHughes 7y ago
        Well that’s a stupid article. The operative words: “Defined by the percentage of the population earning less than half of the median national income”. In an absolute sense, Japan has no poverty.
    - slothtrop 7y ago
      I've seen estimates ranging from 15% to 19%. That's not low, it's higher than most developed countries. Seems to me the stabilizing effect of a stagnating population is the main reason.
- squimmy 7y ago
  > If you throw trash on the ground, 100% of the people around you will give you a disapproving look. http://buzz-plus.com/article/2018/10/29/garbage-shibuya-halloween-news/ http://buzz-plus.com/article/2018/10/29/garbage-shibuya-hall...
- baddox 7y ago
  Do you have any data supporting your suggestion that areas with more diverse populations tend to be less disapproving of littering?
- pac39 7y ago
  Diversity is strength?
- matz1 7y ago
  Likewise with gun. But I guess the US prefer their "freedom" more.
- b_tterc_p 7y ago
  Technically true but kind of loaded statement. For most societies, including the states, immigrants will not increase the crime rate.
  - umvi 7y ago
    I don't know if that's completely true. Aren't many (most?) of the organized crime groups historically immigration-based in the US? The American Mafia was started by Italian immigrants in NYC, MS-13 by El Salvadorian immigrants in Los Angeles, etc.? I mean, we have MS-13 problems even here in Washington DC due to the large El Salvadorian population. I would wager if Japan allowed as many El Salvadorians into Japan as made it into the US, they would start having MS-13 problems too (but maybe not; Japan authorities pretty much decimated the Yakuza last I read).
    - Spooky23 7y ago
      They get a lot of play and operate in the open. The KKK and bootleggers of early NASCAR fame were red blooded Americans.
    - CapricornNoble 7y ago
      The yakuza is still alive and well.[1] They keep a lower profile now than during Japan's boom times, much like the mafia in the US today. I dunno about MS-13 per se, but I've definitely run into an outsized share of sketchy central and south American immigrants in nightclubs in Osaka. A Canadian DJ friend of mine (long-time Osaka resident, like 10+ years) cautioned me to avoid them. They had a reputation for violence, stabbings, etc... [1]NSFW Google search: "site:tokyoreporter.com yakuza". TokyoReporter is my favorite English-language Japan news source; they cover all the seedy shit like ex-porn stars getting busted for drugs.
  - notjtrig 7y ago
    1 out of 8 young people turning 20 in Tokyo were not born in Japan, they have 2.2 million foreigners living in Japan, or 1.76% of the population.
    - 7y ago
codesushi42 7y ago
The grass is always greener. But in the case of the US, it usually is when the grass is the rest of the developed world, sadly. After staying in Japan, there is no doubt that I would live there if I were Japanese. It is even a consideration as a non-Japanese. Quality of life seems to be a lot better there, even if there aren't as many job opportunities.
- mutt2016 7y ago
  Quality if life seems better everywhere when you are a tourist. I think people in the USA work crazy hours and take no vacations. How does Japan compare?
  - tmm84 7y ago
    The people/times when I seen crazy hours worked are those doing paperwork or working on a death march for some project they didn't think when accepting it.
  - codesushi42 7y ago
    IMO from what I have heard from folks working at Japanese offices of big tech companies: people work harder in SV.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - ghaff 7y ago
    >I think people in the USA work crazy hours and take no vacations. You may think that but it's far from universal, including in the tech industry. [ADDED: The US does rank fairly low on average on the amount of vacation people take but Japan is as low or lower.]
  - astrange 7y ago
    In Japan you stay in the office all day and night, not because you're doing work but because everyone is too self-conscious to be the first to leave. This is less true for the newer generation, especially since they don't have full time jobs in the first place.
alexgmcm 7y ago
Doesn't Japan have a generation with extremely poor job prospects due to the 'lost decade' etc.?

mc32 7y ago

Tell you what. Check on the elderly sole survivors who don’t have anyone checking up on them. Bring some community to them. Help them with their emergencies, things they have difficulty executing.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
toomuchtodo 7y ago
Incentives matter. You must enforce this from the top down, that law enforcement will be measured by community engagement. Action and results will follow.
andrewstuart 7y ago
That's the job of a social worker, a different kind of government employee.
- cperciva 7y ago
  It is a different job, but should it be? Why can't they be cross-trained? In Vancouver, the police are on the front lines of helping the homeless / drug addicted / mentally ill population (there's a very large overlap between the three groups) access shelters and treatment.
  - magduf 7y ago
    I can't speak to Japanese police, but in America you wouldn't want our police doing any kind of social work. The police here are just bullies who have been given badges and guns, and are exactly the wrong personality for any job that requires compassion. Moreover, they're extremely trigger-happy and are well-known to shoot people who are having mental health episodes.
- rdl 7y ago
  Maybe for substantive interactions, but merely going on patrol and ringing doorbell/greeting elderly who have opted in to the service wouldn't require very much. If they are literally without things to do, this would be one of the least destructive things they could do.

gen3 7y ago

Initially I thought this was really good, and it really is. I will say, some of the crimes investigated seem to be a waste of time and money. for example > In one recent case, she says, they arrested a group of people who had shared the cost of renting a car, deeming the arrangement an illegal taxi. and > One woman describes how five officers crowded into her cramped apartment after she reported her knickers being swiped from a clothesline. I hope there has been a push to use this manpower in other, better ways (such as how the article mentioned they were better handling domestic abuse).

hanoz 7y ago

Heaven save us from law makers and enforcers with too much time on their hands.

wst_ 7y ago
You would have to have society that creates such situation in the first place. Honestly, I'd rather choose that kind of society among others.
growlist 7y ago
Or policing hurty tweets rather than chasing rapists.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

I've lived on an American military base with a crime rate so low that the military police spent months determined to track down some guy who robbed the liquor store because it was the most exciting thing that had happened in ages. There can be a real downside to police officers overzealously looking for someone to bust just to have something to do.

jjeaff 7y ago
You'd think they could come up with something constructive. Have the officers do community service among the residents while on the clock and in uniform. You'll have even less crime that way.
- steve19 7y ago
  What makes you think there would be less crime when the crime rate is already very low? Spending less money on police and more on things such as social welfare will probably do more for crime than getting them to plant trees or whatever.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  On a military base, it's not so bad. They genuinely need to police drunk driving because you have a lot of young people with decent incomes on their own for the first time. Most American military bases are pretty aggressive about policing traffic issues, and it's apparently all to the good. They do things like place some crumpled car as a billboard somewhere prominent to remind you daily what your car might look like if you drive drunk, then post a count that gets updated daily "Days since last deadly accident" or something like that. And on the base in question, we had on base housing. One of the duties of the police was to let you in your house if you locked yourself out accidentally. (I did once.) But this article starts with a stake out actively trying to tempt someone to steal something. It's essentially entrapment, or not far from it.
  - tjohns 7y ago
    That's not entrapment. At least in the US, entrapment has to pass two tests: 1. Was it a crime the suspect was unlikely or unwilling to commit otherwise? (The "subjective" test.) 2. Did the actions of officers cause a normally law-abiding person to commit a crime? (The "objective" test.) In other words, entrapment is when the police actively cause somebody to commit a crime they wouldn't have otherwise committed in similar circumstances. In the article, the police just left a case of beer inside a car. The police created a passive opportunity, but that's not enough for entrapment... the act of steeling that beer was entirely self meditated.

paulcole 7y ago

Teach them to code?

doodliego 7y ago

They should create some squads to work on cold case files.

bjourne 7y ago

That is a common trend in all kinds of enforcement jobs. As the number of rule breakers gets lower, the rules get tougher to compensate. For police officers, security guards and bouncers it means that they will intervene in less and less serious offences. But it appears it works the same in other kinds of professions too. For example, dental health is improving around the world so dentists are spending more of their time with cosmetic issues because fewer patients have holes in their teeth. It's even the same in software development. What do you do when there are no major bugs to fix? You spend your time fixing all the minor irrelevant issues! I think the empirical evidence is soundly against the idea of people being lazy. People will always find stuff to do because almost no one likes rolling their thumbs all day.

rodgerd 7y ago
> What do you do when there are no major bugs to fix? You spend your time fixing all the minor irrelevant issues! Frameworks, frameworks everywhere.
- BigJono 7y ago
  Nothing kills time as effectively as a nice casual game of dependency jenga.
rv-de 7y ago
There just aren't any important and big problems left to solve - I suppose we are born into a very lucky century </sarcasm>
vincent-toups 7y ago
"It's even the same in software development. What do you do when there are no major bugs to fix?" ... Where do you work?
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  And where do we send our resumes?

lacampbell 7y ago

That sounds amazing. Here in provincial NZ officers won't even respond to a car crash or minor violent crimes, because they're so understaffed. I can go a month without seeing them. I have zero faith in police to deal with the large anti-social behaviour here, and it's made me dislike having to be in public. If you're a criminal come to NZ. You can rob any shop you want, no one has guns, and police departments won't bother with you even if the victims have your face on camera.

crimsonalucard 7y ago
Why is this voted down. Just wondering.
- lacampbell 7y ago
  I assume it's because I pointed out shop owners not having guns makes them easier targets. Also a lot of wealthy americans tend to fetishize New Zealand as a place they can 'escape' to every time a republican becomes president - so maybe this ruins the image they have of it.
  - northwest65 7y ago
    Funny isn't it, that they think they would be welcome because they vote blue... New Zealanders tend to consider Americans undesirable immigrants regardless of their political beliefs.
- brohee 7y ago
  Because the feeling doesn't match the crime solving statistics, at all.
  - lacampbell 7y ago
    If a crime occurs and people don't even bother reporting it because minor incidents never get looked to, how does that show up in the crime solving statistics?
7y ago

andrewstuart 7y ago

End the war on drugs and alot of the police work will vanish. In the U.S. they'll need to sort out the opiate crisis which frankly is weird to see anyway because it's the corporations who are the drug barons.

newfriend 7y ago
Drugs are highly illegal in Japan, yet there is no major drug crisis -- which seems to indicate that it's a cultural problem, and not related to enforcement and illegality. It could even be argued that extremely harsh punishments for drug related crimes could act as a deterrent.
- Nursie 7y ago
  > Drugs are highly illegal in Japan, yet there is no major drug crisis Arguably Japan is rife with benzodiazepine abuse, several varieties of which can just be bought and consumed freely there.
- soulofmischief 7y ago
  The popular illegal drugs may be, but it's common to see physical vendors peddling research chemicals which aren't scheduled in Japan.
- newsgremlin 7y ago
  I don't know if there has ever been a major drug crisis, Japan has a long history of using cannabis for hemp based products but the use of it recreationaly wasn't really a concern domestically. Though the figures around drug use and overdose might be under-reported, even Japanese doctors will report drug use to the police thus deterring people from being honest. The pressure to ban cannabis outright came from US influences when Japanese legislation was passed in 1948, meth infact is actually the most used illicit drug today.
- socialdemocrat 7y ago
  Yes culture is a major part of it, which is why you need to compare similar countries. Among western countries those with more liberal drug laws tend to have less problems. Compare e.g. the Netherlands, Switzerland and Portugal with the US. In my native Norway, punishment for almost anything is quite mild including drug related crime. Yet drug usage is much lower than in the US. We are all more similar to the US than Japan, being all derived from European culture.

mevile 7y ago

Can anyone read this article? It's behind a paywall for me.

chihuahua 7y ago
I don't understand why an article is posted that's behind a hard paywall.
- grzm 7y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html > "Are paywalls ok?" > "It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds." > "In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic."
dave_aiello 7y ago
I agree. I can't get to any more than the first two paragraphs of the body of the article.
jiberwarrior 7y ago
You can quickly reload the page, and stop it before the JS for the paywall loads (esc on pc) The HTML loads but not the js that implements the paywall.
- kalleboo 7y ago
  If you have Safari's reader mode set to activate automatically, it will also kick in and grab the content before the JS engages the paywall.
  - xhgdvjky 7y ago
    this is good to know. thanks
pardavis 7y ago

dave_aiello 7y ago

Was this article written before or after the Kyoto Animation Studio fire, https://comicbook.com/anime/2019/07/18/kyoto-animation-studio-arson-attack-japanese-officials-report-33-dead-anime/ https://comicbook.com/anime/2019/07/18/kyoto-animation-studi... ?

AIyosha 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_Japan

Animats 7y ago

(2017)

rubyn00bie 7y ago

I honestly don’t know why police don’t first and foremost do social work, helping out their communities (visiting elderly, helping folks with disabilities, helping collect data, repair or fix ailing public facilities, etc) instead of putting them in jail and fining them. Call me crazy, but what a wonderful world that would be... if people saw a cop and thought “fuck yeah, this person is here to help me,” rather than “find or create a situation in which I’ve done something wrong and will be punished.” We are all long-term pretty fucked as long as we have institutions devoted to our worst selves. As another commenter said, we need to incentivize better behavior if we want it...

zik 7y ago
When I was a child I read picture story books which taught me that this was the purpose of police - to help citizens. They showed old ladies being helped across the road by humble bobbies and exhorted me to seek the nearest policeman if I ever became lost. In adulthood it didn't take too many encounters with actual police to realise that they don't see their purpose the same way AT ALL.
- mnm1 7y ago
  Parents should be more responsible and teach their kids about police. One bad encounter can be the end of their child's life. Letting them read things like this without providing a realistic perspective is quite irresponsible, IMO. I grew up in a society where no one was deluded like this about the role of police. We all knew they were evil and out to hurt or kill us. Those lessons paid off after I moved to America. Here the cops are just as bad but many people kid themselves into thinking they are not. That's a delusional society.
  - amfsn 7y ago
    Cops in the US are out there to hurt you or kill you? Talk about delusional.
heimatau 7y ago
This would help with all the PTSD that cops face. The job is hard. This would humanize the trouble by reducing the stress in their work environment. Please keep advocating this idea, since it's novel but probably very effective to help society mend it's issues with law enforcement.

lovemenot 7y ago

Almost every evening a couple of officers stand at the end of my street in Tokyo. There they can easily catch motorists making an illegal right turn. The rule exists only at certain times of day making it very hard for motorists to comply. The police know this and just wait there like a bear fishing for spawning salmon. It seems so pointless. If the right turn is really a problem then mark it in such a way as to make compliance obvious. If not, then just allow it and stop enforcement.

pardavis 7y ago
I had one of these on my commute in Atlanta for a while. (Left turn) It was impossible to read the sign unless you came to a stop, at which point a cacophony of honking emerged from behind, whether it was the right time or not. At some point they added a little yellow light to indicate it was legal to turn. I was a little awestruck.
- cladari 7y ago
  I got a speeding in a school zone ticket and fought it because the points for that offence are high. The sign gave times the speed limit was in effect but I missed it and there were no other cars on the road so I didn't have that as a reference either. My lawyer argued that if the time of day was required knowledge there should have been a clock installed under the sign or some other visual alert. I got off.
exhilaration 7y ago
My very first ticket, after I got my license in the mid-90's, was for the same thing -- but in Manhattan.
- dnr 7y ago
  You lived in or near NYC and didn't know that right-on-red is illegal in the whole city, at all times? There's no possible confusion there (except maybe near the borders of the outer boroughs, but Manhattan is an island so pretty hard to claim you didn't know you were in the city).

spinach 7y ago

If they cared about women they would find lots of crime. Particularly on trains, so many women get groped and harassed.

spinach 7y ago

If they cared about women they would find lots of crime. Particularly on trains, so many women get groped and harassed. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/22/national/media-national/embracing-social-media-protect-others-danger-japan/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/22/national/media-...

tdxcbkifxx 7y ago
Since when is "harassing" someone a crime?
- devm0de 7y ago
  I believe they’re referring to Chikan which is estimated to have happened to 2/3 of women who ride the train in Japan and the act violates several Japanese laws.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- qtplatypus 7y ago
  It is when the harassment is of sexual nature.
  - mruts 7y ago
    Actually all harassment is a crime in the US. Just insulting people and saying lewd things isn’t harassment, though.
    - sterwill 7y ago
      I don't think this is true. There are 50 states, each with different laws and definitions of acts and crimes. I am not aware of any federal anti-harassment laws except for those governing workplaces, and even those do not consider all harassment to be illegal.
  - 7y ago

grepgeek 7y ago

> Register to read this article in full: Sign up I don't want to create a new account to read an article? Is there any other option to read this article? I know one could say that if I don't want to create an account like the website wants, then I have no right to read the article. Yes, I understand that. I respect the website's owners' right to enforce access to the article however they please and I am okay to not read the article if there is truly no other way to read it without creating an account.

pardavis 7y ago
https://outline.com/www.economist.com/asia/2017/05/18/as-crime-dries-up-japans-police-hunt-for-things-to-do https://outline.com/www.economist.com/asia/2017/05/18/as-cri...
- grepgeek 7y ago
  This is cool. I wonder how outline.com manages to get past the sign-up wall.
jwilk 7y ago
Archived copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20190731093221/https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/05/18/as-crime-dries-up-japans-police-hunt-for-things-to-do https://web.archive.org/web/20190731093221/https://www.econo...

2bitencryption 7y ago

I was in a massively busy market street in Dotonbori, Osaka, at night. A police whistle shrieked, and I turned and saw a police officer absolutely booking it through the crowd, shoving through people, shouting at some perpetrator. My American-cultured brain thought, "This is it, someone's about to die." It seriously freaked me out. I watched, and he caught up to... a guy on a bike. It was a no-biking zone. He gave the guy a ticket.

PinkMilkshake 7y ago
I was in Japan for a month not long ago and one thing that stood out for me was police walking around with large wooden sticks. Many walked around with expandable police batons, casually fully expanded.
- brokenmachine 7y ago
  I don't know where you're from but "casually fully expanded" sticks doesn't really sound so scary when police all have handguns, metal batons and tasers where I am. And I'm in relatively gun-free Australia.
- CapricornNoble 7y ago
  Back when the bosozoku were more active (even 2012 was interesting compared to now), there were certain main streets that had a near-constant police presence between midnight and 4am on Saturday nights. The police would use those big staffs to knock the bikers off of their rides sometimes.
- ezoe 7y ago
  Was that really a police? The way you describe, it sounds like private guard man protecting the cash transfer.
odiroot 7y ago
That is plain cute. I wish we had at least half as stringent enforcement of the laws here in Berlin.

NamTaf 7y ago

They could crack down on the touts fronting tourist scams in areas like Shinjuku? I'm sure there's a lot of less visible crime that occurs (in all cities around the world, not just in Japan), but it's harder to solve so it gets overlooked for easier, more straightforward crimes that return a better bang-for-buck.

magduf 7y ago
What are these tourist scams?
- NamTaf 7y ago
  Touts (generally African immigrants) aggressively try to encourage you to come grab a drink with them, trying to be all friendly and acting shocked that you might not want to come with them when they want to shout you a drink in a bar. Once in the bar (who's in on it), the scam ranges from charging you way too much to buy ladies drinks, through to drugging and robbing you before dropping you home. They'll never get physical with you beyond getting really close in your personal space and trying to shake your hand, but if you don't acknowledge them and walk past them then they often don't even do that. Their target is young white male tourists with lots of cash who wanna get drunk and party with ladies. https://www.ski.com.au/xf/threads/tokyo-warning-specific-types-of-nightlife-unsafe-for-travelers.44284/ https://www.ski.com.au/xf/threads/tokyo-warning-specific-typ...
  - magduf 7y ago
    Good to know, thanks!

nkkollaw 7y ago

They should come to Europe, then. Plenty of crime here.

shard972 7y ago

Time to bring in 3rd world immigration then.

Temasik 7y ago

in singapore they use teenage to police the island

roland35 7y ago

Reading the "police blotters" in my quiet town's weekly paper is one of my favorite traditions. This week the police intervened when the wife played music the husband didn't like, so he unplugged the radio. The police did not charge anyone since there was no physical violence... Also some loose change was stolen from a car.

roland35 7y ago
Uh oh there was another loud music related police blotter this week! Someone yelled at a driver playing loud music and punched his car, leaving a dent. Both parties were charged with disorderly conduct.
thomasjudge 7y ago
The Flathead Beacon has some good ones too. Recent: July 18: "10:08 a.m. A Kalispell resident called 911 because she had read in the police blotter that law enforcement rescued a ferret and she was curious if she could have it. Police informed her that they did not keep the ferret." https://flatheadbeacon.com/section/police-blotter/ https://flatheadbeacon.com/section/police-blotter/
lunchables 7y ago
The best part is that it is more likely they just think they left change in the car but forgot they spent it.

gwbas1c 7y ago

The funniest thing I saw in recent memory was some Japanese tourists (in the US) break a law. They brought a bag lunch of sushi to the zoo, and sat down as a family to eat it at a picnic table. Shortly after they started eating their sushi, the parents proudly started drinking 24oz cans of Sapporo. Yes, the Japanese tourists were violating American drinking laws by drinking in public! (And, yes, I know that what they did is perfectly legal and culturally appropriate in Japan!)

blargmaster33 7y ago

Import some diversity and they will have things to do

roadbeats 7y ago

The article is missing a very important answer: do people get discriminated in the system after jail or prison time ? how fast do system organize court for a recently arrested “criminal”? These are realy important to judge the actions of the police.

a_c 7y ago

Being bombarded with Hong Kong news on Bloomberg [1], I am thinking perhaps Hong Kong took the other extreme. Having one of the lowest homicide rate in the world [2], the police is apparently turning against its citizen. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/search?query=hong%20kong https://www.bloomberg.com/search?query=hong%20kong [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

fsurfer 7y ago

Unfortunately, this also means they can force "confessions" from people because they have little to do. https://www.vox.com/world/2015/12/13/9989250/japan-crime-conviction-rate https://www.vox.com/world/2015/12/13/9989250/japan-crime-con...