Japan: Are Foreigners More Likely to be Questioned by Police?
A recent survey suggests so
A recent article in The Japan Times was titled “60% of people with foreign roots questioned by Japanese police, survey finds”. The survey was conducted by the Tokyo Bar Association and was based on a small sample of 2000 foreigners living in Japan. It asked subjects to recall any police encounters over the last five years.
The article mentioned that “80% of those with African and Latin American roots had to deal with investigators.” They are calling out racial profiling and they may have a point, though I think this survey is anecdotal. In 2021, according to the Japan National Police Agency, of the foreigners actually arrested, 37.5% were Vietnamese and 21.6% were Chinese, followed by 6.5% Filipino; not from Africa or Latin America. To put it in perspective, however, all foreigners arrested made up only 0.4% of the total foreign population and 0.008% of the total country.
Japan is one of the safest countries in the world with an overall crime rate of 22.24 per 100,000 and only 0.3 per 100,000 for violent crime. I spent a total of eight years living in Japan, with my time split between Gunma (2 years), Saitama (3 years), and Tokyo (3 years). To be fair, my home in Tokyo was just on the outskirts of Saitama in Narimasu.
