What are effective measures to prevent power and sexual harassment in police forces?

• In Event: Police Misconduct

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine effective measures to prevent power and sexual harassment in police forces, based on case studies in Japan.

Recently in Japan, the number of power and sexual harassment cases within police forces has increased, although moral education on this matter has been intensively conducted in all police forces. This phenomenon seems to have negative impacts upon effectiveness and credibility of police forces.

The research questions of this study are as follows. Whether the power and sexual harassment situations in police forces in Japan are better or worse than in other similar organizations? What are effective measures to improve the situation, other than moral education? The hypotheses are that the harassment situation in police forces may be worse than in other organizations, and that establishing independent or external reporting systems would be effective measures to improve the harassment situation.

For this study, besides reviewing preceding literature, the results of the questionnaire survey to approximately 1,800 police officers and civilian employees of Kochi Prefecture Police in Japan will be examined. This was the first intensive field survey on this matter in Japan.

Author

• Yoshiki Kobayashi, National Police Agency of Japan