By Marie Claire
Amid calls for police reform in the United States the past few months, many have suggested using other countries as models for improvement. Most commonly, countries with significantly lower crime rates are cited as examples of what the United States should strive for in reforms of the current police and prison systems. This article will use the systems of Denmark and Japan as comparisons to the system currently in the United States. These countries were chosen due to their famously low crime rates, with Denmark’s crime rate equaling roughly half and Japan’s at nearly a third of the crime index in America.
Police Force Structure
In Denmark, there are fourteen districts which are overseen by the Politiet, or national police. The Politiet has a subsection referred to as the Rigspolitiet, which is in charge of creating new initiatives and standards for all of the districts. Each district has a commissioner who is in charge of local district police and is expected to uphold the standards created by the Politiet and Rigspolitiet.
In Japan, there is a clear and specific hierarchy within the many agencies in the police force, and all of them are considered subordinate to the National and Prefectural Public Safety Commissions, emphasizing the role of the police force in protecting civilians first and foremost. This Commission chooses the commissioner of the National Police Agency, which is the governing body responsible for establishing nationwide standards in policing. Within the National Police Agency, there are five smaller bureaus or departments: Secretariat, Administrative, Criminal Investigation, Safety, and Communications. These departments serve to separate and organize the handling of responsibilities such as finances, distribution of equipment, criminal investigations, juvenile delinquency, and pollution control. Under the National Police Agency are the Regional Police Bureaus which totals at seven bureaus nationally, each with the responsibility of heading the prefectural, or local, police within a region. The Japanese police force emphasizes a balance between centralized and decentralized forces within the nation. Standards must be well-established and overseen by national agencies, but power and resources must be decentralized in order to provide each community with what it individually needs.
The United States, in contrast with both of these countries, does not have any direct national police force. There are federal government policing agencies which may deal with protection of officials and dignitaries, federal crimes, and crimes which involve crossing state lines, but there is not one bureau or department establishing a standard of practice or overseeing the many departments in the nation. Beneath the federal level, police are typically separated into the following types of departments: city police, county police, transport police, sheriffs’ departments, and state troopers.
Police Force Education and Training
In Denmark, those looking to apply to a police force must be at least 21 years of age with a valid driver’s license, but it is also customary for the applicant to be younger than 29 when applying and to be a college graduate. If their application is accepted, the new officer must complete 9 months in a police academy followed by 18 months of in-person training in a precinct, and following this on-the-job training, they must return for another 9-month course. At the end of this final course, they must pass an examination in order to be considered a licensed officer, and their training concludes with a stint in the Tactical Support Unit in Copenhagen. Education and training do not end with a badge as officers have a slew of both voluntary and compulsory courses as a form of continuing education while they are officers. Compulsory courses typically involve education on subjects that may change over time, such as cyber-crime, environmental protection, and international relations.
In Japan, police officers are generally considered to be a high-status, well-paying, and well-educated position. Most commonly, police officers are college graduates, and if they are only high school graduates, they must pass through a police academy that is twice as long. High school graduates typically graduate from a training academy which is 12 months whereas college graduates have a 6-month training academy. Within this academy, in addition to learning the laws of the nation and regions extensively, students must also obtain a black belt in judo or similar accolades in kendo and take many traditional artistic courses in order to teach potential officers about the cultural and artistic, or “softer,” side of humanity. Following graduation from the training academy, officers spend a year in the field, and at the end of the year, resume the training academy for another four months.
In the United States, there is no national standard for training, and as such many departments have wildly different expectations and requirements as well as police academies. Police academies can last anywhere from 10 to 36 weeks, and field training at departments can vary just as wildly.
Corrections Facilities and Prison Sentences
Danish corrections facilities are relatively lax, but this does not mean they are ineffectual. In these facilities, prisoners are often seen wearing their own clothes, cooking their own food, and often having private visits with family, sometimes even once a week. The country has plans for both “open” and “closed” prisons. Open prisons have easy potential for escape, whereas closed prisons have clear perimeters and guards. However, neither violence nor escape is particularly common in either type of prison. Additionally, the prison system is entirely public, overseen by the Ministry of Justice and further protects the rights of its prisoners by allowing all convicts to vote. By valuing the independence and dignity of each individual prisoner, Denmark fosters a rehabilitative atmosphere as opposed to a punitive one.
Japan has a prison system which is a combination of public and private. Responsibility for the prisons is shared by the Ministry of Justice and four Private Financial Initiative (FPI) institutions. These FPI institutions typically manage the construction, maintenance, and operation of public institutions and may also be involved in the treatment or punishment of inmates. Japanese prisons focus on a system of punishment and reward for behaviors within the prison with a four-level system of restrictions available to inmates. Level 4 is the most restrictive, whereas Level 1 is the least restrictive with the most benefits. Currently, there are many complaints of staff shortages in prisons as their guard to prisoner ratio stands at one to three or four. In addition to staffing complaints, many argue living conditions in Japanese prisons are not ideal and should be improved. For example, punishment is often harsh and contact with the outside world is nearly non-existent as they do allow visits, but not conjugal visits or even visiting rooms without partitions.
In the United States, prisons are also a combination of public and private, and these private entities range from non-profit to for-profit. Prisons are strict and often rely on a large system of corrections officers for prison security and inmates to run much of the inner machinations of the prison, such as food and laundry. When both the strictness and restrictiveness of American prisons are compared to prisons like Denmark, in spite of these strictly enforced rules aiming to mitigate violence, there are actually often many more cases of violence in these American prisons.
The Effectiveness of These Systems
These systems’ merits can each be evaluated in many different ways, but this article will look at them from the viewpoint of two statistics: crime index and recidivism rates. As mentioned before, the crime rates in Japan and Denmark are drastically lower than that of the United States, reflecting well on these nations systems of police organization and education. In order to potentially evaluate the prison systems utilized, one may look at recidivism rates, or how often convicts commit offenses after being released from prison. In 2019, Denmark’s average rate of recidivism was about 27%, whereas in Japan it was about 48%, and in the United States, it ranged from 40% (nonviolent crime) to 64% (violent crime). By comparing the United States’ prison and policing systems to other countries that have noticeably lower crime rates, proper reforms can and must be made to address the growing problems.
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