Policing The Japanese Police

Who will police Japanese policemen? These guys (who also happen to be police officers):

The National Police Agency (NPA) has decided to deploy special officers to supervise police interrogations, in an attempt to prevent police abuse of suspects under questioning.

The new measures, which will be introduced at police headquarters and local stations across the nation in April 2009, were incorporated into a set of new investigatory regulations finalized by the National Public Safety Commission on Thursday.

Interrogation supervisors will be deployed on a trial basis as early as the end of fiscal 2008.

Under the new measures, a new division to supervise police questioning will be set up at each police headquarters, staffed by a supervisor and an officer to patrol each police station under its jurisdiction.

A supervisor will also be stationed at the police affairs division at local police stations, and will oversee questioning by those sections in charge of actual investigations, such as the criminal affairs division.

The regulations cite seven investigative activities that will be subject to supervision:* Touching a suspect, except when inevitable;* Threatening a suspect by beating him/her or the furniture;* Words and actions that would make a suspect unnecessarily insecure or confused;* Force a suspect to perform certain actions or postures;* Giving favor to a suspect, or to offer or promise to do so;* Any words or actions that undermine the dignity of a suspect;* Interrogations between 10 p.m. through 5 a.m. the next day without permission from the head of a police station, or questioning that lasts more than eight hours a day.