Job Discussion Forums

[Sweetsee]

Today's boso are tomorrow's cops.

[PAULH]

[BurnChurch]

MOD EDIT
They Like, as stated before, to bother people, to mess with foreigners - specially when you do that "weird" thing when you walk and breathe just like others and you all know what?
HOW the heck can they interrogate us, which is embarrasing, if front of other people if they are not trained to speak English?
The most retarded and dangerous people are the japanese themselves, not the foreigners!
Just watch the news.
And I also think they train these cops demonizing all foreigners showing them videos or something!
That`s stupid, gay, retarded, dumb,,, whatever you call it!
I hate them

[Bozo Yoroshiku]

[Bozo Yoroshiku]

[wolfman]

[shuize]

[wangtesol]

So are cops in a small city (say 20,000 people) hired by the city hall or are they hired by the prefecture? Or what? If they are hasseling you (ie. foreigners) one could go to city hall and complain, if city hall hires them.

[Jazz1975]

Hmmmmmmm....something tells me I should use being Asian to my advantage and try to blend in with the crowd. This way, there's less chance I get stopped and asked to show my gaijin card. Well...one can hope.

[gaijinalways]

I have ridden a bike here only once, so I can say I have never been stopped on a bike. By comparison the cops in Taiwan are pretty helpful, but you have to pay attention to them as you have to go to a special police station to get your visa!

The only time I got stopped was when I was riding on my motorbike in Taipei and made an illegal left turn, and the cop was hidden on the edge of the intersection. He lectured me a bit in Chinese and English (usually if they don't speak English they give up pretty quick, but they can give you a ticket), then let me go. Not to say I learned my lesson, often if I could, I made illegal turns, just kept a more careful eye out for cops !

Some of the Japanese cops are helpful (for directions), but most of the time they do seem a bit useless. Remember though, there is 1 policeman for every 100 people, the highest ratio in the world !

[alexrocks]

Is there really one cop for every hundred people here? Compared to the States, it feels to me like the police have a really minimal presence here. I find that figure hard to believe, though I have no idea what the true ratio might be.

[Khyron]

[wolfman]

[sallycat]

i have a friend who was harassed into leaving the country by the police. she was beaten unconcious by a stranger on one of the main streets of kyoto (kawaramachi, if you're interested).
the police questioned her intensively, and
-- confiscated her gaijin card
--refused to allow her to bring a japanese-speaking friend to the police station with her (she didn't speak very much japanese herself), and said that their staff spoke english. the "english speaker" said things like "your attacker, round eyes?" (i'm not saying that the japanese police should be able to speak english, but she should have been allowed to bring someone to translate)
--insisted that she was married to her male flatmate, and that they would report her to immigration for being married to him. when she said she was not married to him, they repeatedly asked her how many times a week she had sex with him.
--insisted that she was drunk at the time of the assault because she was talking funny. she'd been knocked unconcious and was bleeding from the mouth at the time. she actually wasn't drunk at all (and so what if she had been?)
--accused her of aiding islamic terrorist groups because she had been at karaoke with an indonesian guy. and because "your name, not englishman's name"
--insisted that she send her father's death certificate from new zealand.
-- insisted that her attacker was a foreigner, even though she had heard him speaking japanese.
-- told her that if any detail of what she had told them was wrong, for example if her attacker had approached her from the left side rather than the right side, they would prosecute her for lying to the police.

etc.
then she got a letter from imigration asking her to come in and "discuss her visa status", despite the fact that her visa wasn't due to be renewed for another six months.
incidentally, she said that although there are statistics for the number of assaults on japanese people by foreigners, she was unable to find any statistics on the number of assaults on foreigners by japanese people.


so, japanese cops, just lovable wimps, eh?

[Jazz1975]

Sallycat, this is highly disturbing to say the least. You've just strengthened my resolve that much more to hook up with a women's organization and to make myself very aware of resources available to foreign women so I know where to turn in order to access information.