police innovation paradigm in the united states and japan

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This article was downloaded by: [Dicle University] On: 16 November 2014, At: 10:33 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Click for updates Police Practice and Research: An International Journal Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gppr20 Police innovation paradigm in the United States and Japan Ryuji Okabe a a National Police Agency, Tokyo, Japan. Published online: 18 Mar 2013. To cite this article: Ryuji Okabe (2014) Police innovation paradigm in the United States and Japan, Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, 15:3, 192-206, DOI: 10.1080/15614263.2012.754125 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15614263.2012.754125 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &

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This article was downloaded by: [Dicle University]On: 16 November 2014, At: 10:33Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Click for updates

Police Practice and Research: AnInternational JournalPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gppr20

Police innovation paradigm in theUnited States and JapanRyuji Okabea

a National Police Agency, Tokyo, Japan.Published online: 18 Mar 2013.

To cite this article: Ryuji Okabe (2014) Police innovation paradigm in the United Statesand Japan, Police Practice and Research: An International Journal, 15:3, 192-206, DOI:10.1080/15614263.2012.754125

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15614263.2012.754125

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &

Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Police innovation paradigm in the United States and Japan

Ryuji Okabe*

National Police Agency, Tokyo, Japan

This article examines whether policing innovation occurs in the same way in two coun-tries: the United States and Japan. By developing a ‘police innovation paradigm’ whichdistinguishes processes of generation, promotion, and obstruction of police innovation,the article describes the roles of academic communities, federal/central governments,local/prefectural governments, and police chiefs in both countries. A key implication ofthe findings is that while the American paradigm has apparent strengths in generationand promotion of innovative ideas, precise implementation of those ideas seems to bemore successful in Japan. In conclusion, lessons for Japanese police are identified.

Keywords: police innovation; innovation process; innovation paradigm

Introduction

In general terms, innovation in organizations is the adoption of a new idea that mayimprove core business outcomes. Among several types of innovation, strategic andadministrative innovations have the most significant implications for those organizationsadopting them. Strategic innovations are shifts in mission orientations as well as the coreoperational methods of adopting organizations, while administrative innovations arechanges in the ways in which organizations prepare themselves for existing missions(Moore, Sparrow, & Spelman, 1997).

The United States and Japan reveal quite different pictures with regard to the strategicand administrative reform of police. In the United States, remarkable policing innovationshave occurred, or have at least been tried, by police organizations over the last three dec-ades. For example, as the most important innovations, Weisburd and Braga (2006) listcommunity policing, problem-oriented policing, broken-windows policing, third-partypolicing, hot-spots policing, pulling lever policing, Compstat, and evidence-based polic-ing. Among these, community policing, problem-oriented policing and broken-windowspolicing have a strategic quality, while Compstat has an administrative implication. Otherinnovations are, rather, operational means to implement a problem-oriented strategy.1

In contrast, it seems that the general strategy and process of policing in Japan hasbeen remodeled less often. Community-oriented practices including foot patrol and com-munity engagement have been widely implemented,2 and the core role of the Japanesepolice has not been deterrence through law enforcement but ‘crime prevention throughenhancing the capacity of society to discipline itself’ (Bayley, 1991, p. 183). However,this is not innovation but rather is the traditional policing approach in Japan.

Why is it, then, that policing innovation can be found more frequently in the UnitedStates than in Japan? In the first place, have police innovations occurred in the same way

*Email: [email protected]

Police Practice and Research, 2014Vol. 15, No. 3, 192–206, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15614263.2012.754125

� 2013 Taylor & Francis

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in the two countries? The answer is unclear, since unfortunately there has been nosystematic study to date which specifically focuses on cross-national differences in thepolice innovation processes. In this article, the author takes a first step in that directionby developing a comparison between the American and the Japanese processes in whichstrategic and administrative police innovations have been achieved.

Brief literature review and conceptual framework

A number of policing and sociological studies have examined organizational innovation(e.g. Bingham, 1978; Damanpour, 1991; Morabito, 2008; Skolnick & Bayley, 1986;Skogan & Hartnett, 2005; Weisburd & Lum, 2005; Weiss, 1997). Among them, King(2000) identifies three different research types: the innovativeness, diffusion, and processstudy. Research on innovativeness seeks to explain differences in the number of adoptedinnovations by a set of organizations, whereas the diffusion approach examines differ-ences between early and late adopters of a particular innovation. The process study, onthe other hand, seeks to clarify how new ideas are found, developed, and then adoptedby organizations (King, 2000).

This study can be placed in the context of the process study. The process of policeinnovation has three key components: the generation of ideas, the promotion of ideas,and factors that obstruct those functions. The author refers to these components and theirrelation to police innovation itself as ‘the police innovation paradigm’ (Figure 1). By gen-eration, the author is referring to efforts to develop new ideas. The promotion of ideasincludes various attempts by external constituents to encourage the adoption of newideas. If a police organization generates and adopts an idea for itself, then promotion isnot involved in this case. Skogan and Frydl (2004) observe that many constituents exter-nal to police have functioned as drivers of police innovation in the United States.Accordingly, this study will compare how (1) the academic community, (2) the federal/central governments, (3) the local/prefectural governments, and (4) police chiefs areinvolved in the generation, promotion, and obstruction of strategic and administrativepolice innovations in both the United States and Japan.

Role of the academic community

United States

In the United States, the academic community has been a key source of policing innova-tion for almost half a century. Many innovative policing ideas have been developed basedon research findings (Bayley, 2008). Additionally, the institutionalization of the academic

Obstacles

Adoption and implementation by

police

Generation of ideas

Promotion of ideas

Figure 1. Functional framework of the police innovation paradigm.

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field of police studies has made police leaders more responsive to various opinions fromoutside of police (Bayley, 1998), which makes self-innovation within police more likelyto occur.

A pivotal moment in the development of such police studies was the publication, in1967, of The challenge of crime in a free society, a report by the President’s Commissionon Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (Skogan & Frydl, 2004). In responseto highly publicized police scandals as well as widespread urban riots and an unprece-dented crime surge in the early to mid-1960s, then President Lyndon B. Johnson set up anational commission to examine issues of crime and its control (Sherman, 1974).Responding to the report’s emphasis on necessity of science to guide policing, a consider-able number of academic scholars entered the field to conduct research focusing on issuessurrounding the fairness and effectiveness of policing (Sherman, 2004; Skogan & Frydl,2004).

One of the notable features of American police studies is that they have been largelyconducted in the context of social science, rather than legal studies (Bayley, 2008;Skogan & Frydl, 2004). This fact has an important implication. Scholars of law tend tofocus on what should be pursued for the sake of fairness or justice. However, such anapproach does not necessarily provide a usable knowledge base for public policy. On theother hand, social scientists generally study sources of various problems as well as theefficacy of different solutions to those problems. The utilization of a social scientificapproach is a distinctive feature of American policing studies.

There is little doubt that some innovative policing ideas have been developed throughacademic research. For example, as Bayley (2008) observes, community policing was ini-tially developed based on research conducted during the 1970s, which found that tradi-tional policing strategies were not as effective as had been claimed. Problem-orientedpolicing was also introduced by an academic scholar, Goldstein (1990), who emphasizedthe importance of an analytic focus on recurring problems. Another example is the ideaof broken-windows policing pioneered by Wilson and Kelling (1982), who argued thatserious crimes were facilitated when minor crimes and disorder went unaddressed.

There has been no consensus, however, regarding the extent to which research find-ings have encouraged police to adopt innovative ideas. Although some studies haveobserved direct impacts of research upon policing practices (e.g. Petersilia, 1987; Walker,2004), police scholars themselves have been moderately suspicious about the direct influ-ence of their works on innovation adoption by police (e.g. Bayley, 1998). The opinion ofthe author is that while academic scholars have produced strategic and administrativeideas to the American policing field, their efforts have not directly led to the adoption ofthose ideas by police. Ultimately, American police chiefs interact not only with academicscholars but also with mayors, federal and state agencies, professional organizations, andother influential groups. With regard to the promotion of innovations, the influence ofother institutions may have outweighed that of academic scholars.

This is not to suggest that the influence of research upon innovation adoption is negli-gible. As mentioned earlier, the institutionalization of research has made American policemore responsive to outside opinions (Bayley, 1998) and has encouraged reconsiderationof existing policing strategies and processes in light of new findings. In fact, Bratton(1998, p. 138) identified the involvement of social scientists as a key reason for the emer-gence of ‘the professionally informed and educated police chief’. The emergence of suchprofessional chiefs has ensured the creative implementation of ideas pioneered byacademics, and has also ensured the generation of numerous smaller scale innovations bypolice themselves, such as adoption of new technologies and tactics.

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Japan

In Japan, academic scholars have not played important roles in strategic and administra-tive reforms concerning police. While roughly 300 or 400 scholars are conducting scien-tific research on police in the United States (Skogan & Frydl, 2004), there appears toonly be a handful of such scholars in Japan. Mistrust between governmental authoritiesand universities, lack of political attention to policing issues, remarkably low crime rates,and the ideological character of existing police studies are the key reasons for this lackof police–academe collaboration.

In Japan, there is a history of mutual mistrust between the academic community andthe government institutions, including police. Before World War II, the academic commu-nity had been subject to governmental suppression, including prohibition of publicationsviewed as critical of the government (Takano, 1995). During the1950s and 1960s, whenviolent movements by student activists spread throughout Japanese universities, tensiondeveloped between the need of restoring order by police and the new constitutional rightsof autonomous universities, which included self-maintenance of order within campuses.This tension was particularly observable in 1969, when students occupied the main cam-pus of Tokyo University, the leading academic institution in Japan. From the standpointof police, universities’ delay in seeking help contributed to the disorder. From theuniversities’ point of view, the government’s intention to intervene was threat to theirautonomy. These events exacerbated mistrust between the academic community and thepolice, which hindered the development of objective police research by academicscholars.3

Relative lack of political attention to policing issues is another reason for the reluc-tance of Japanese academic scholars to study police. In the United States, mayors, gover-nors, and even presidents have publicly addressed crime and policing issues. This may bebecause, as Walker (2004) suggests, American police are operating at the center ofnationwide issues such as race and immigration. In fact, political environments have oftenencouraged, and set key agendas of policing studies (Walker, 2004). However, in Japan,due to significantly lower crime rates (see Ellis, Lewis, Hamai, & Williamson, 2008) aswell as homogeneous nature of its population composition, police operations have beenlargely free from national controversy. Although policing tactics have been sporadicallyquestioned by human rights advocates, the appropriateness of general policing strategieshas rarely been challenged in the political arena. Overall, due to relative lack of politicalattention to policing issues, Japanese scholars have been less attracted to those issuesthan American scholars.

Low crime rates have also made collaborations with the academic community lessurgent in the view of Japanese police (Tamura, 2003). Because academic scholars are notfrom within police organizations, their involvement can be institutionalized only whenpolice leaders recognize the necessity of objective evaluation. In the United States, arapid increase in crime and disorderly activity motivated some police executives to acceptinvolvement of academic scholars. Bayley (2008) gives credit to provident police leadersfor the institutionalization of collaboration between police and academic society. Bycontrast, in Japan, although the National Police Agency (NPA) established the PolicePolicy Research Center in 1996, most police leaders have not yet recognized the utilityof social scientific inquiries.

Finally, the ideological approach in policing research has reduced the acceptability ofscholars’ inquiries in the eye of Japanese police. In Japan, modern police wereestablished at the same time as importation of the continental law framework (Yamada,

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Atsumi, & Tamura, 2002), hence law scholars came to lead research on police. Theiranalyses have focused on whether the Japanese police have complied with legal or moralstandards, as opposed to a wider empirical appraisal of the crime prevention effectivenessand social impacts of policing. This approach has placed them in an adversarialrelationship with the police, undermining opportunities of collaboration between policeand academics.

Role of the federal/central government

United States

As Skogan and Frydl (2004) argue, the role of federal government in shaping police strat-egy is relatively insignificant. Among its initiatives, promotion of community policing isthe only prominent example. The lack of direct authority over most police forcesthroughout the country has been a hurdle for the federal government to produce changesin the local policing scene.

A key characteristic of the structure of American police is its fragmentation anddecentralization. Roth, Ryan, and Koper estimate that there are approximately 20,000 lawenforcement agencies in the United States (as cited in Skogan & Frydl, 2004, p. 48).Reaves (2007) estimates that as many as 17,876 are non-federal agencies, including12,766 local police forces which are autonomous, directed independently from the federalgovernment. The US Department of Justice (DOJ), unlike the Japanese NPA, does nothave authority to introduce new ideas as a mandate of local police forces.4

Hence, the American federal government has attempted to encourage police innova-tion mainly through subsidies. For example, in order to promote community policing,$8.8 billion became available with the enactment of the Violent Crime Control and LawEnforcement Act of 1994 (The Office of Community Oriented Services [COPS], 2000).Since then, the Office of COPS at the DOJ has provided funds to more than half of allpolice forces (Helms & Gutierrez, 2007). Currently, the majority of local forces have awritten plan for community policing (Reaves & Hickman, 2004). Also, federal agencies,in particular the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), have performed important roles inresearch financing. For example, upon receiving over $46million from the COPS officein 1995, the NIJ has accelerated its investment in policing research (Skogan & Frydl,2004). Federally funded research has produced knowledge which can contribute to thegeneration as well as promotion of new ideas.

However, there is a clear limit to the capability of the federal government to promoteinnovation. Although community policing has been successfully promoted through federalsubsidies, the promotion of a wider array of innovations would require more financialresources, which seems to be beyond existing federal capacity. Furthermore, providinggrants has an inherent limitation. It is dependent on police organizations’ voluntary inno-vation attempts, hence is not able to force change among them. Considering that electedofficials were involved in more than 80% of COPS application decisions by local policeforces (Roth & Ryan, 2000), the COPS initiatives would have been less successful ifthere was no pressure from local elected officials.

Japan

In Japan, bureaucrats of the NPA have significant leverage over prefectural police depart-ments, while legislators at the National Diet have none at all. However, general strategiesof policing have not been significantly remodeled by the NPA. Lack of external pressure,

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a lack of a real sense of crisis within the NPA, and the NPA’s unfamiliarity withpragmatic policy-making are the main reasons for the relative insignificance of its role ingenerating and promoting innovation.

Japanese police can be described as multiple and moderately decentralized forces(Bayley, 1985). They consist of 47 prefectural police departments attached to each prefec-tural government with the NPA at the central government level. Prefectural police forcesare in charge of all operational police duties, while the NPA develops and implementspolicies through the administration and coordination of the prefectural police departments.Given the fact that almost all prefectural police chiefs are selected by and from NPAexecutives, policies established at the NPA can have significant impacts on day-to-dayactivities of the prefectural police departments.

Despite the fact that the NPA has formal authority to encourage strategic and adminis-trative innovations throughout the prefectural police departments, the role of the NPA hasnot been as significant as it likes to claim. The only notable exception is the introductionof Comprehensive Measures to Prevent the Occurrence of Street Crimes and Break-inCrimes in 2002,5 which can be understood as national guidelines for implementing com-munity policing. The guidelines emphasized collaborations with the community and otheragencies to strengthen crime prevention efforts, which were given higher priority thanever before. Focused prevention strategies directed toward specific geographic areas,types of crimes, offenders, and victims were all strongly recommended. Furthermore, pre-fectural police headquarters and police stations were encouraged to develop an actionplan taking community input into consideration (Kawamura & Shirakawa, 2008). Thiswas a pivotal moment for the Japanese police, because it indicated that a range of com-munity-oriented practices already in place at policing front lines were formally endorsedby the NPA as a strategic model of policing.6

There are three main reasons for the relative insignificance of the NPA role. First,there has not been significant political pressure on the NPA to promote strategic andadministrative change. In Japan, to maintain political fairness of policing, the NPA is sig-nificantly buffered from political influence. Furthermore, Japanese bureaucratic traditionhas allowed remarkable autonomy for the NPA. Although the NPA is under the adminis-trative control of the National Public Safety Commission (NPSC), the NPSC has rarelyaltered policy direction in any specific or authoritative way (see Bayley, 1991). Second,because the NPA has never faced a crime crisis as has the United States, it has rarelyquestioned the appropriateness of its strategic and administrative framework. Third, thepolicy-making approach at the NPA is not ‘pragmatic’, but rather tends to be relatively‘instinctive’ (Bayley, 1991). Many of the NPA executives are law faculty alumni of theTokyo or Kyoto universities; hence they mostly focus on considering policy options interms of legality and justice, not on empirical study of policing effects. This relativelyinstinctive approach has prevented the NPA from generating scientific knowledgerequired for strategic and administrative innovation.

This is not to suggest that the NPA has performed poorly in shaping public order.The NPA has been highly sensitive to even slight change in crime rates (Bayley, 1991).Its initiatives have included the drafting of new legislation to criminalize particular activi-ties,7 the establishment of inter-agency collaborations for preventive efforts,8 and the pro-motion of activities of community volunteers throughout Japan. These initiatives haveenhanced the Japanese traditional system of informal and formal social control. Theyhave not, however, required significant change in front-line policing. Interestingly, withthe exception of the community policing guidelines in 2002, the NPA has made lesseffort to alter the basic strategy and core operational methods of police themselves than

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to develop policing by various non-police institutions such as local residents andcommunity volunteer groups.

Role of the local/prefectural governments

United States

In the United States, local officials can be considered both promoters of and obstacles topolice innovation. As promoters, they have pressured police departments to implementinnovative policing ideas. As obstructors, local officials have sometimes interfered withpolicing issues solely based upon their political calculations.

In the United States, policy-making roles have been largely assigned to elected offi-cials and their appointed subordinates (see Behn, 1997). The underlying principle is thatpublic agencies should be under the control of elected officials who are responsible totax payers (Skogan & Frydl, 2004). Although the bureaucratization of police since theearly 1900s decreased the leverage of local politicians (Kelling & Moore, 1988), localpolice have not yet been insulated much from political influence. The community polic-ing movement may, in fact, further strengthen the influence of elected officials byemphasizing participation of local politicians and citizens (Reiss, 1992).

As Skogan and Frydl (2004) observe, local officials control police mostly through theappointment of police chiefs. Although they can also exercise budgetary control, thisdoes not have much impact upon police policy, mainly because the largest portion ofpolice budgets is in personnel, and the nature of policing does not necessarily permit sig-nificant budgetary change (Skogan & Frydl, 2004). Mayors and their direct subordinateshave strong leverage over police policy, primarily because the authority to appoint anddismiss police chiefs is usually assigned to them. For instance, Tunnell and Gaines(1992) found that 24% of surveyed police chiefs in Kentucky left their positions in 1990,seemingly being dismissed or demoted after new mayors took office. Although it is alsoobservable that some mayors and commissioners have had to struggle with resistantpolice bureaucracy (see Guyot, 1991), their leverage over police is typically significant.

Mayors and their subordinates have in some cases successfully encouraged police toadopt new ideas. For example, the presence of black mayors was found to be positivelyrelated to the proportion of sworn officers who are black, and to the presence of civilianreview boards (Saltzstein, 1989). In Oakland and Seattle, the first black mayors wereinstrumental in the creation of civilian review schemes (Bass, 2000). As for communitypolicing in Chicago, it was not the police department but the mayor’s office that laid outcommunity policing programs (Skogan, 2006). Finally, the initiatives of former MayorRudolph Giuliani have often been mentioned to explain the establishment of broken-win-dows policing within the New York City Police Department (NYPD) (e.g. Greene, 1999).

It should also be noted that, as Guyot (1991) observes, the involvement of electedofficials can constitute political interference rather than reasonable accountability. Forexample, political influences have affected police record-keeping, so that gang problemswere socially constructed through police statistics to legitimize the political agendas ofincumbent mayors (Meehan, 2000). In Chicago, police efforts to reallocate officers inorder to deal with shifting demographic and crime situations were rejected by electedofficials because such reallocation decreased staffing levels in their districts (Skogan,2006). These kinds of political interventions may have hindered police efforts to achieveinnovation.

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Japan

Generally, Japanese prefectural initiatives can be explained as neither promoters norobstructors of policing innovation. The tradition of bureaucracy-led policy-making as wellas low crime rates throughout the country has limited the incentives of prefecturalgovernments to control police policy.

In Japan, patterns of policy-making have been described as bureaucracy-led, ratherthan an exercise in accountability. After World War II, upon the request of the Americanoccupation military, the administrative vice-minister of each ministry and agency wasdesignated as a civil service post (Fukuoka, 2007). Furthermore, according to Fukuoka(2007), because all policy issues had to be agreed upon by all administrative vice-minis-ters before being discussed at the Cabinet, civilian bureaucrats inevitably came to holdsignificant leverage over policy-making. Regarding the police, another tradition alsofavored their autonomy. In Japan, the involvement of elected officials is usually viewedas a dangerous threat to liberty, rather than a reasonable supervision of bureaucracy tosecure rights of citizens (Bayley, 1991). This view came to be institutionalized due to thepolitical abuse of police forces before World War II.

Police policy-making deeply reflects the above traditions. At the central governmentlevel, the NPA has significant autonomous authority to make policy. Furthermore,because prefectural police chiefs are selected by and from NPA executives, prefecturalgovernments do not have much leverage over policing. The main tool given to them isbudgetary control, which, as noted, has limited influence. Simply put, prefectural gover-nors may think that policing should be administered mainly by the NPA. Additionally,this view may have been further solidified because policing and crime have rarely beentop electoral issues at prefectural level.

This is not to suggest that prefectural governments have never been involved in shap-ing public safety. For example, collaborations between the Tokyo Metropolitan PoliceDepartment and the Tokyo prefectural government achieved remarkable success in therestoration of the district called Kabukicho in Shinjuku, where an illegal sex industry andJapanese mafia had been rampant (Takehana, 2008). By and large, however, policing pol-icies have not been developed by prefectural government initiatives but were led by thepolice (see Takehana, 2008). It is fair to conclude that prefectural governments have per-formed as neither influential promoters of nor obstacles to policing innovation in Japan.

Role of police chiefs

United States

Police organizations themselves have not been key sources of innovative ideas in theUnited States (Bayley, 2008). The introduction of Compstat by William Bratton, thenNew York City Police Commissioner, is the only prominent example of the generation oflarge-scale innovation within police agencies. Insufficient experiences in management aswell as limitations on their managerial autonomy have been hurdles for American policechiefs to generate innovation. The most important contribution of American police chiefs,therefore, has not been self-generation of innovation but their openness to outsideevaluation which has generated new ideas for policing.

Career patterns of police chiefs suggest that they do not have much managerialexperience and training before reaching their positions. In the United States, most policechiefs are police officers who are promoted from the lowest rank, often within thesame agencies. For example, Withal discovered that nearly 80% of surveyed police chiefs

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were promoted to their position from within the same agencies (as cited in Penegor &Peak, 1992, p. 18). These ‘insider’ chiefs tend to spend the early parts of their careers ascriminal investigators, not as administrators (Enter, 1986). When exceptional lateralentries occur, ‘outsider’ chiefs are generally from another law enforcement agency, notfrom other type of public agency or the private sector (Enter, 1986). Additionally, as for-mer NYPD chief Bratton mentions, American police forces do not have an adequatetraining system to cultivate professional leadership (Isenberg, 2010). As a result, Ameri-can police leaders commonly do not have much managerial experience and trainingbefore reaching their positions.

Limitations on the managerial autonomy of police chiefs are another important factor.Tunnell and Gaines (1992) discovered that more than 20% of current chiefs reportedexperiencing mayoral pressure regarding their decisions on personnel matters, personnelassignments, law enforcement, and other operational services. Even highly proficientpolice chiefs have reportedly struggled with the imperative of maintaining good relation-ships with mayors (Isenberg, 2010). This kind of constraint has been the result of thedeeply rooted principle of accountability or, in other words, American skepticism towardcivil servants. Bureaucratic discretion is seen as an open gate to corruption, abuse ofpower, and unfairness (Altshuler, 1997). Constraints on the managerial freedom of policeleaders has hindered the generation of strategic and administrative innovation withinpolice organizations.

However, this is not to say that American police chiefs should not be given any creditfor generation and promotion of innovation. Although new ideas generally have been theresult of empirical research by academic scholars, such inquiries required openness bypolice organizations. For example, funding of over $10million has been directed towardempirical studies conducted at the Kansas City Police Department from 1971 to 1995(Sherman, 2004).9 As Bayley (2008) suggests, it was farsighted police chiefs that insti-tuted this openness to evaluation by outsiders. Additionally, we should note that informalor formal discussion and information exchange among police chiefs have contributed tothe diffusion of innovative ideas among police forces. For example, previous studies haveconfirmed that membership in professional organizations, such as the International Asso-ciation of Chief of Police and the Police Executive Research Forum, was positivelyrelated to innovation (Skogan & Hartnett, 2005; Weiss, 1997; Weisburd & Lum, 2005).

Japan

Japanese police chiefs have not been notable for generating innovation. There are noprominent examples of strategic or administrative innovations that were generated withinprefectural police departments. This may seem odd, not only because prefectural policechiefs are generally proficient in their administrative roles, but also because they havemore managerial autonomy than their American counterparts. There are two related rea-sons for this – the short tenure of police chiefs and the reluctance of chiefs to reconsiderbasic strategies.

Abundant administrative experience and significant managerial autonomy are keycharacteristics of Japanese police chiefs. In Japan, the career patterns of police chiefs aresignificantly different from those of police officers within prefectural police departments.In fact, they are police bureaucrats, who are hired by the NPA and not by prefecturalpolice. They start their careers as assistant police inspectors, third rank from the bottom,and develop their careers as generalists. Before reaching the post of prefectural policechief, most of them typically have worked at the NPA and at least two or three

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prefectural police departments as well as other central governmental bodies, such as theMinistry of Foreign Affairs or the Cabinet Office. Therefore, prefectural police chiefshave much administrative experience. In addition, Japanese prefectural police chiefs havea great deal of managerial autonomy, which is not granted to most American policechiefs. While Japan has decentralized all operational police duties to prefectures, chiefsof prefectural police are selected from and by NPA executives. Thus, Japanese policechiefs can plan and implement policy without much intervention from externalconstituents.

Why then, have Japanese police chiefs not been able to generate strategic and admin-istrative innovation? There are two main reasons. First, the short tenure of police chiefsmay have been an obstacle. Skogan (2008) implies that the frequent succession of policemanagers can be impediment on innovation. In Japan, most chiefs tend to stay in theirpositions for only one or two years.10 This is clearly shorter than the average tenure oftheir American counterparts, which, according to Maguire (2003), is approximately fiveyears. Thus, their short tenure has made it difficult for Japanese chiefs to generate andimplement innovation during their terms. Second, Japan lacks a tradition of empiricalevaluation of basic policing strategies. Instead, Japanese police executives have sought todevelop informal social systems that prevent crime. For example, larger-scale mobiliza-tions of other agencies and the community were initiated by police chiefs at Hiroshimaand Osaka prefectures in 2002, which was later promoted by the NPA in other prefec-tures (Takehana, 2008). Japanese police chiefs have paid relatively little attention to theefficacy of their own policing strategies and administrative frameworks. As a result,mission orientations as well as core operational methods of prefectural police have notbeen significantly altered by their chiefs.

Discussion and conclusion

In summary, there are major differences between the American and the Japanese policeinnovation paradigms. In the United States, the academic community has examined polic-ing issues more enthusiastically and objectively than their Japanese counterparts, withmost of strategic and administrative innovations having been generated by academicresearch. The federal government has largely focused on the promotion of innovation,but it has not been able to foster a wide array of innovative ideas. Local governments,especially mayors and their direct subordinates, on the one hand, have successfully pres-sured police to adopt innovation; however, they have also obstructed innovations byexerting unfair demands and limiting the discretion of police managers. Finally, policechiefs have not generated strategic and administrative ideas, mainly because they do nothave sufficient managerial autonomy.

In Japan, academic scholars have not pursued empirical analysis of policing strategies.The NPA has the formal authority to make changes in the local policing scene, but suchauthority has not been well exercised. Although the NPA has enhanced systems of socialcontrol, it has not examined how policing resources can be used in the most efficient andeffective way. Prefectural governments do not have much leverage over policing. Finally,chiefs, who stay at their position only briefly, are not powerful generators of innovation.These conclusions are displayed in Table 1.

It seems that while the American paradigm is strong in generating and promotinginnovative ideas, the implementation of ideas is more successful in the Japanese para-digm. One weakness of the American paradigm is a lack of input from rank and filemembers (Bayley, 2008; Sklansky & Marks, 2008). This weakness can further fortify

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existing cynicism among them, which results in significant difficulties in the implementa-tion of innovation. Skogan (2008, p. 27) observes that ‘officers typically hear about newprograms when they are announced at city hall press conferences, and they feel that mostinitiatives are adopted without their input’. Furthermore, the prominent involvement ofexternal constituents implies that police manager’s decisions to adopt innovation can bemerely a symbolic response to external pressures without full commitment to the sug-gested ideas. Many prior studies show that innovations have not been fully implementedby adopting agencies (e.g. Maguire, 1997; Mastrofski, 1998). Therefore, the irony is thatthe energetic dynamics of the generation and promotion of new ideas from outside ofpolice organizations have somehow resulted in significant difficulties at the stage ofimplementation within those organizations.

With regard to Japan, a relative lack of outsiders’ involvement and the considerableautonomy of police leaders imply that every decision to start a new initiative occurs onlyafter careful internal discussion within the police agency. Although such discussions tendto be prolonged, organizational commitment to implementation can be more easily wonby police managers than is the case among American police. Hence, the irony is that alack of enthusiasm among outsiders for the generation and promotion of innovative ideashas provided the Japanese police with potential for successful implementation of reform-ing strategies and administrative frameworks.

The Japanese police can learn two lessons from the American paradigm. First, moreattention should be paid to the evaluation of the efficacy and effectiveness of policingstrategies and practices. Although the Japanese police are progressive in terms of devel-oping preventive social control, less is known about the social effects of policing than isthe case with American police. What is needed most by Japanese police is a careful eval-uation of policing by police themselves, not the development of policing by non-policeinstitutions. Second, Japanese police should explore ‘insider–outsider collaboration’between themselves and academic scholars (Bayley, 2008). Such collaboration will helpJapanese executives develop fact-based understandings of policing, which would maketheir policy-making more pragmatic and productive.

Caveats

My conclusions are subject to a few caveats. First, this study considered the paradigmthrough which strategic and administrative innovations are achieved. If smaller scaleinnovations such as technological or tactical innovations were considered, my conclusionabout the role of police chiefs would be different. Second, the present study has notexamined how other institutions, such as police unions, have influenced policing

Table 1. Roles in strategic and administrative innovations of policing.

Generation Promotion Obstruction

USA Japan USA Japan USA Japan

Academic Community } � � � � �Federal/central Government � � � � � �Local/prefectural Governments � � } � � �Police chiefs � M � � � �Note: }= significant and direct involvement, �= direct involvement, M = insignificant but direct involvement,� = indirect involvement, �= no clear evidence of involvement.

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innovation. While the roles of American police unions as bulwark to police reform havebeen identified (Skogan, 2008), it should be noted that the right of organizing laborunions is not granted to police officers in Japan. This cross-national difference may berelated to the discussion that precise implementation of police innovations will be moresuccessful in Japan than in the United States. Finally, I should point out the lack of aca-demic literature on Japanese policing. To develop my argument about Japanese police, Imostly drew upon my informal knowledge obtained through four years of workingexperience in Japanese policing. My conclusions about Japanese situations are, therefore,tentative, and much in need of wider study.

Notes1. These categories of innovations are not clearly distinct. As Moore et al. (1997, p. 278)

concede, categorization of innovation can be a ‘judgement call’.2. One famous practice is establishment of police box called Koban, where several officers are

involved in various tasks including emergency response, foot patrol, minor crimes investigation,community engagement, and so forth (see Bayley, 1991; Kawamura & Shirakawa, 2008).

3. In Japan, student demonstrations were often provoked by internal affairs within universities,such as voting for deans and change of tuition or dormitory fees, not by broader social topicsas was the case for American movements (see Ishida, 1971). Thus, the Japanese Governmentinterpreted the spread of demonstrations in part as the outcome of the inappropriate adminis-tration of universities themselves. The result was enactment of the Act of Temporary Measureson University Management in 1967, which obliged universities to hear student demandsappropriately, and immediately report to the Minister of Education when disorder occurredwithin campus. Academic scholars perceived this legislation as a significant threat to theirautonomy. The Act was abandoned in 2001.

4. The Japanese counterpart of the DOJ is not the NPA, but the Ministry of Justice. Strictly, theNPA does not correspond to any of the American federal bodies.

5. An altered version is available at the NPA website (NPA, 2007).6. Another contributing factor was Bayley (1991)‘s intensive field research on police operations

in Japan, which relied on systematic field observations and interviews with hundreds of offi-cers. It was only after his study that Japanese police executives came to recognize the strate-gic meanings of the Koban system and establish the concept of community police in 1992(see Tamura, 2003). This initial conceptualization was a key for subsequent introduction ofthe national guidelines on community policing by the NPA.

7. Latest examples include the 2003 Act on Prohibition of Possession of Special UnlockingDevices, which criminalized the possession of picking tools as a way to deal with increasingburglary incidents (NPA, 2009).

8. For example, in 2003, the NPA initiated the inter-agency working group to promote the useof building components with high crime prevention performance (NPA, 2009).

9. This time span covered the administrations of 10 police chiefs at the KCPD (Sherman, 2004).10. Most chiefs continue serving after leaving their posts at the prefectural police. They are

expected to work as a director or bureau chief at the NPA.

Notes on contributorRyuji Okabe is a police inspector of the Japanese National Police Agency (NPA) and a formerstudent of the School of Criminal Justice, State University of New York, Albany, USA. Theopinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the official position of the NPA.

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