Law enforcement in Japan

Policing in Japan is administered at the prefectural level. Each of the 47 prefectures maintains its own police, and each prefecture has the authority to carry out police duties within its area. Over that prefectural policing sits a national organisation — the National Public Safety Commission and, under it, the National Police Agency — whose role is to coordinate and to supervise the prefectural police on matters of national concern, and to set general standards.

Prefectural public safety commissions

Each prefecture's police operate under a prefectural public safety commission — a civilian body interposed between the prefectural government and the police, mirroring at prefectural level the civilian oversight the National Public Safety Commission provides nationally. The prefectural police are not branches of the National Police Agency; they are the prefecture's own police under its commission.

Tokyo is the special case

Tokyo's prefectural police is the Metropolitan Police Department, which uses its own Japanese name, Keishicho (警視庁). It is the prefectural police of the Tokyo metropolis, distinctive because of its scale and its position in the capital — not a national police force and not a branch of the National Police Agency.

The ordinary pattern: Osaka

Most prefectures follow the standard model, of which Osaka is an example: the Osaka Prefectural Police, under the Osaka Prefectural Public Safety Commission. The pairing of Tokyo and Osaka on this platform is meant to show that the prefectural pattern is the general rule and Tokyo's specially named force is the exception, not the other way round.