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The story
The Metropolitan Police Department is short 3,060 officers against its authorized staff of 43,619, leaving it at a fill rate of just 93.0% as of April — dead last nationwide. The effects on public safety are already showing, including slower response times to 110 emergency calls. On 5ch, users voiced sympathy for officers on the ground (“brutal hours for lousy pay,” “don’t dump bear-response duty on them too”) alongside debate over pay and working conditions.
Published 7:01 AM, Tue 8/25
Mainichi Shimbun
The Metropolitan Police Department, responsible for criminal investigations and security in the capital, Tokyo, is short 3,060 officers this fiscal year against an authorized staff of 43,619. Its fill rate stood at 93.0% as of April, far below the national average of 97.1% and the lowest in the country. Citing a wish “not to alarm Tokyo residents” (in the words of one official), the department has declined to release further details, but effects on public safety are already emerging, including longer response times to 110 emergency calls.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
with the labor shortage, is business drying up for small and mid-size regional sash (window frame) manufacturers? Are they going under?
http://hissi.org/read.php/newsplus/20260825/SXR5QUV4dmIw.html
Mr. Sash Nut is losing it — still copy-pasting even though nobody's engaging with him.
Gotta keep grinding, gotta keep grinding.
Civil service jobs and big companies will grant you leave if you say you're headed to college, so you can always go to university later.
Don't be ridiculous — go be a security guard instead.
I'm going to college, then becoming a civil servant.
They'd need to build a real-life Police Academy first.
(For reference, the foreign population is growing.)
Japan's population falls below 120 million for the first time in 42 years — down 910,000 to 119.73 million, while the foreign population rose by 350,000
https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/20260729-GYT1T00324/
Japan's population falls below 120 million for the first time in 42 years — down 910,000 to 119.73 million, while the foreign population rose by 350,000 ★2 [Gure★]
https://asahi.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/newsplus/1785323985/
Uh, Tokyo's population is actually growing though.
Would be great to have police who specialize in busting that kind of skimming. How about a tax-free 2% reward for it?
That's the only option left.
Everyone knows the old saying — working for a master is a wretched thing — being a public servant just isn't worth it.
Some idiots keep spouting nonsense about civil servants getting special treatment, but if you really think that, go try it yourself.
Re: #60
And there it is — more crackdowns. Quit piling more work onto the police, idiot.
Yeah, it's basically wall-to-wall criminals in that show — they really laid it on thick.
If you want to live off tax money, pick any civil service job except the police.
Apparently firefighting is more popular as a career choice than police work.
Well, firefighters are basically on standby until a call comes in,
whereas police have to deal with citizens and criminals around the clock, day and night.
Also, firefighters aren't particularly disliked by the public,
but a lot of people resent police officers — grudges from traffic stops and being questioned on the street, that kind of thing. It's a thankless role.
Hearing people who quit talk about it, I figured even good pay wouldn't make it worth it.
The pay only looks high because of all the overtime and holiday shifts.
It really is brutal.
And on top of that, places like the police, fire department, and Self-Defense Forces
have brutal workplace relationships/hierarchy.
Just build it into the car from the start and auto-charge your credit card every time you commit a violation.
Ordinary people drive way too casually just to prop up the auto industry.
Nobody needs a 4-seater car just to commute solo.
At this rate they can't protect Tokyo residents.
Maybe instead of a military draft we need a 'police draft.'
No matter how much you throw at it, you'll never have enough hands against those bear claws if you don't get the numbers up.
How many bears do you even think there are?
Something about that feels off.
Guess we'll have to outsource it to the private sector.
Tobu Construction site flagman here: 'You catch that?' (likely a nod to a known story about grueling private-sector security/flagman jobs)
there was a recruitment poster in the waiting room for MPD officers, hired as skills-test examiners.
Made me think passing the exam as a test-taker is harder than being the examiner.
That day, 8 people took it and only 1 passed….
Of course the direct exam is harder.
Back in the day, the only way to get the displacement limit removed from your motorcycle license was the direct exam at the test center.
I went and took it myself twice, failed both times, and gave up.
I think the old-style direct exams were even harder than today's.
There was even a serialized feature in the famously thick magazine Monthly Motorcycle called 'The Road to Removing the Limit' — such a relentless slog of hardship that it read like it was written just to make you give up on the exam (lol).
I've got my 'techo' (could mean a license — or, as a joke, a disability/mental-health certificate, implying he's unqualified).
A bedridden detective, huh?
Background and Key Points
Japan’s roughly 260,000 police officers are organized by prefecture, and the Metropolitan Police Department — despite covering only the Tokyo capital region — is the largest single force in the country, responsible for everything from koban (neighborhood police box) patrols to major crime investigation and VIP security. Its authorized strength of 43,619 dwarfs other prefectures’, which is why even a 7% vacancy rate translates into roughly 3,000 missing bodies. Nationally, the fill rate for police is 97.1%; Tokyo’s 93.0% is the worst in Japan, and the department’s reluctance to detail causes (citing public anxiety) is itself notable in a country where police forces rarely acknowledge operational strain publicly.
The thread didn’t really argue over whether the shortage is real — it split over whether policing itself is a fair deal. Some posters framed the job as uniquely brutal (long hours, hostile public interactions, harsh internal hierarchy) worse even than firefighting; others mocked it as low-effort work like lurking near a stop sign, suggesting the “brutal job” framing is exaggerated or unevenly true depending on assignment.
What’s likely to be missed: this isn’t a police-specific crisis but part of a broader shrinking applicant pool for all Japanese civil-service jobs, driven by demographics and the private sector’s better pay for less rigid hierarchy. One poster’s claim that Japan’s population decline explains the shortfall was also directly rebutted in the thread — Tokyo’s population is actually rising even as the national figure falls, meaning demand for services (and thus policing) is growing precisely where staffing is weakest.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (News Speed+) thread “Tokyo Police Short ‘3,000’ Officers — Recruiting Troubles May Be Hitting Public Safety”.
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