Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 279–289, 1998Copyright © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd

Printed in the USA. All rights reserved0047-2352/98 $19.00

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PII S0047-2352(98)00015-4

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PUBLIC ATTITUDES TOWARD THE POLICE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN JAPAN AND AMERICA

Liqun Cao

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and CriminologyEastern Michigan UniversityYpsilanti, Michigan 48197

Steven Stack

Criminal Justice DepartmentWayne State UniversityDetroit, Michigan 48202

Yi Sun

Department of HistoryUniversity of San Diego

San Diego, California 92110

ABSTRACT

Comparative research on the police in Japan and in the United States is largely based on qualitativeor participatory observation techniques. These studies in general seem to suggest that the Japanese pub-lic has a higher evaluation of their police than the Americans. The present study uses quantitative datafrom both countries and attempts to test the hypothesis that the Japanese public has higher confidence intheir police than does the American public. Preliminary findings in the multivariate analysis indicate,surprisingly, that the Japanese have significantly lower confidence in their police compared to Ameri-cans. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd

INTRODUCTION

Many American experts on police haveclaimed that Japanese police in general enjoy

much wider support from the public they servethan do the police in the United States (Ames,1981; Bayley, 1991; Hoffman, 1982; Kim,1987; Parker, 1984; Thornton, 1992; Wester-

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L. CAO, S. STACK, and Y. SUN

mann and Burfeind, 1991). While well sup-ported by data derived from participant obser-vation techniques, these studies, however, arenot able to offer us empirically comparablequantitative data to support their claims. Thepresent study adds to the burgeoning literatureby exploring the issue with representative sur-vey data from both Japan and the United States.Specifically, the current research intends to testthe hypothesis that the Japanese public hashigher confidence in their police than does theAmerican public.

There is a substantial body of American re-search that has examined the dynamics of thepublic’s satisfaction, trust, and confidence in thepolice (Apple and O’Brien, 1983; Benson, 1981;Brandl et al., 1994; Cao, Frank, and Cullen,1996; Cullen et al., 1996; Dean, 1980; Decker,1981; Dunham and Alpert, 1988; Flanagan,1985; Furstenberg and Wellford, 1973; Hindel-ang, 1974; Scaglion and Condon, 1980; Skogan,1978; Webb and Marshall, 1995; White andMenke, 1978; Zamble and Annesley, 1987).The study of public opinion toward the police isimportant for at least three reasons. First, be-cause the public is the consumer of police ser-vices, it is vital to obtain their evaluation of thepolice service received (Carlson and Sutton,1979; Flanagan, 1985; Skogan, 1978). Second,positive images of the police are necessary forthe police to function effectively (Decker, 1981;Murty et al., 1990; Skolnick and Bayley, 1986).Negative attitudes toward the police, in con-trast, result in “mutual ill feelings, lack of re-spect, disorder, and inefficient police function-ing” (Radelet, 1986:280). Third, the informationmay yield important insights not only into citi-zens’ confidence in the police, but also into thecorrelates of their confidence (Hero and Durand,1985). As a result, the public opinions about thepolice have been monitored closely in the UnitedStates among academia and policymakers.

By comparison, little quantitative researchhas been published on Japanese public attitudestoward the police,

1

and little attention has beenpaid in the academic literature to the issue of therelationship between the Japanese police andthe public from the viewpoints of the police cli-entele (Steinhoff, 1993). Most scholars of theJapanese police focus on the operations of the

criminal justice system rather than on its clien-tele—the public (Ames, 1981; Bayley, 1976,1991; Katzenstein and Tsujinaka, 1991; Parker,1984; Thornton and Endo, 1992; Westermannand Burfeind, 1991). Limited information onthe relationship between the police and thepublic is largely based on observational andnonrandom data. Thus, whether the image ofbenign neighborhood-level police officers work-ing in a culturally supportive environment willsurvive a rigorous test is an empirical issue thatbegs to be resolved only by quantitative analysis.

Further, little systematic attention in crimi-nology and criminal justice has been given to

comparative

public opinion, which has the po-tential to serve as a barometer of a culture’scontemporary sentiment. As such, the results ofthese surveys may be useful in the attempt tounderstand the behavior of the public with re-gard to the police as an institution and the dif-ferential responses of different segments of asociety. The expressed attitude may also fore-shadow any popular changes within a societytoward the police. Moreover, comparative pub-lic opinion in different societies may reveal cer-tain persistent cultural variations. The presentstudy attempts to address this negligence in thecomparative literature of criminology and crim-inal justice by using one of these public opinionsurveys. It hopes to advance the knowledge inthis area by comparing representative data fromJapan and the United States.

Japan is of great interest for this comparativestudy because of its many similarities with theUnited States. It is a highly developed, industri-alized, and urban society. As Bayley (1991:ix)comments, “Comparisons between the UnitedStates and Japan are not vitiated by disparitiesin technical capacity, educational levels, wealth,or dominant modes of production.” Further-more, though a constitutional monarchy with acomparatively weaker party system, Japan doesnot differ from the United States in ideologicalstands (Fukuyama, 1992): both are democraticcapitalist societies. As such, data collected arehighly reliable—one important feature for asuccessful effort of serious comparative re-search.

Japan is also intriguing for this study be-cause of its many differences from the United

Public Attitudes Toward Police

281

States. First, Japan is a representative of EastAsian cultures, with rice cultivation and reli-gious heritages of Shintoism, Buddhism, andConfucianism. In contrast, the United States is aWestern country with wheat cultivation and areligious tradition of Judeo-Christianity. Sec-ond, Japan has a different governmental struc-ture, population composition, and geographicalenvironment. It is an island nation with a cen-tralized political system and more homoge-neous population, while the United States is acontinental society with a decentralized politi-cal tradition and huge population diversity (seeWestermann and Burfeind, 1991). These differ-ences may produce a distinct pattern of the pub-lic attitudes toward the police in Japan that isconsiderably different from what scholars havefound in the Western societies.

The similarities between the two societiesprovide a solid basis for a meaningful compari-son; however, it is the differences that bothchallenge and attract scholars to conduct compar-ative studies. The aim of this study is thus two-fold. First, this study intends to test the hypothesisthat the Japanese public has higher confidencein their police than do the Americans. Second, itexplores whether, and if so, to what extent, thesocial determinants of the public’s attitudes dif-fer in the two nations. In the following section,the literature of the public attitudes toward thepolice in the two societies is reviewed.

Public Attitudes Toward the Police in the United States

With American culture centering around val-ues of freedom, individualism, equality, decen-tralization of authority, and a utilitarian ap-proach to life (Bellah et al., 1985; Westermannand Burfeind, 1991), the institutionalization ofthe police was accepted reluctantly according toa utilitarian philosophy (Langworthy and Travis,1994): it could prevent greater harm (in theform of people becoming crime victims) to thesociety than the harm caused (through restric-tions on liberty). In other words, the police areregarded as a “necessary evil.” The police taskof crime control in the United States is thus de-scribed as an “impossible mandate” (Manning,1978). Although American citizens have deep

suspicions about state power (Bayley, 1976;Lipset and Schneider, 1983), studies show thatthe public generally holds positive attitudes to-ward the police (Apple and O’Brien, 1983; Cao,Frank, and Cullen, 1996; Dean, 1980; Whiteand Menke, 1978; Zamble and Annesley, 1987).It is also known, however, that these sentimentsare not displayed equally across all sectors ofthe social order.

Voluminous literature exists in the UnitedStates on the public’s evaluation of the police.The current review of this literature is limited tothose studies that present a multivariate analysisof sociodemographic and attitudinal factors as-sociated with public perception and evaluationof the police. From this literature,

2

it appearsthat age is generally positively related to theconfidence in and satisfaction with the police(Brandl et al., 1994; Percy, 1980). Females gen-erally score higher than males in their evalua-tion of the police (Percy, 1980; Brandl et al.,1994; Cao, Frank, and Cullen, 1996). Conserva-tive political ideology is positively related toconfidence in the police (Benson, 1981; Zambleand Annesley, 1987). Income is also found to bepositively related to the confidence in the police(Benson, 1981; Peek, Lowe, and Alston, 1981;Percy, 1980). The effect of education is mixed,however. Brandl et al. (1994) found that educa-tion is positively related to global satisfactionwith the police, while others found that it isnegatively related to satisfaction with the police(Scaglion and Condon, 1980).

Public Attitudes Toward the Police in Japan

In contrast to the United States, with Japa-nese culture emphasizing collectivism, order,relativism, shame, and respect for authority(Ames, 1981; Becker, 1988; Fenwick, 1985,1996; Vaughn and Tomita, 1990; Westermannand Burfeind, 1991), law enforcement in Japanis perceived as “heaven for a cop” (Bayley,1976, 1991). Literature on the Japanese attitudetoward police is scarce, unspecific, and nonrep-resentative. From the limited existing Englishsources, it is known, for example, that the pub-lic-police relationship seems to be much moreharmonious and cooperative in Japan than in theUnited States (Ames, 1981; Bayley, 1976,

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L. CAO, S. STACK, and Y. SUN

1991; Fenwick, 1985; Hoffman, 1982; Kim,1987; Parker, 1984; Westermann and Burfeind,1991). There is organized support for the policein Japan through volunteer citizen groups suchas crime prevention associations. Further, it isargued that Japanese police gain their legiti-macy from the basic characteristics of Japaneseculture (Smith, 1983). Since the police institu-tion in Japan is national in design, the policecarry with them the legitimating influence ofthe national government. Traditional respect forauthority is deeply ingrained in Japanese historyand philosophy. Historically, the Japanese po-lice have been respected as persons of relativelyhigh status (Kim, 1987; Parker, 1984). Ames(1981) notes that the first policemen in modernJapan were recruited from the samurai rank andwere accorded great respect. In contemporaryJapan, the police are considered the new samu-rai, full of

Nihon damashii

—Japanese spirit(Bayley, 1976).

The Japanese police rely heavily on urban

koban

and the rural

chuzaizo

(mini-stations inurban and rural areas) to control criminal activi-ties in an area. Police officers not in the mini-station also stay close to the community. Thepatrol officer is called

omawari-san

, “Mr.Walk-about.” Police officers generally travel byfoot or bicycle. American-style motorized pa-trol is rare (Parker, 1984).

Police penetration of people’s daily life inJapan is much more routine than in the UnitedStates (Bayley, 1991). For example, twice ayear, uniformed police officers knock on thedoor of every residence and ask many ques-tions, many of which are unrelated to crimecontrol, about the lives of the people in theneighborhood. The police are also more activein service-oriented activities that are unrelatedto law enforcement, such as various generalcounseling offices in each prefecture-level po-lice department. These involvements in com-munity activities are done by a

known

person ina community, not by “an anonymous face flick-ering by behind a facade of steel” (Bayley,1991), which makes them much more accept-able and much less intruding. It seems that thispenetration has not negatively affected the pub-lic’s satisfaction with the police in any sense.Indeed, the public-police relationship is often

described as harmonious and cooperative. Bay-ley (1976, 1991) and many other scholars at-tribute the low crime rate found in Japan par-tially to the close relationship among the police,community leaders, and residents, and to a highdegree of public cooperation with the police.

From these observational sources, one seemsto be able to expect that the Japanese publicwould have a

higher

confidence in their policethan the American public. Further, the literatureshows that social support for the police in Japandiffers according to the social variables found inthe United States, such as age and ideology. Forexample, it appears that the political left, day la-borers, and the young are having some prob-lems with their police (Bayley, 1976, 1991;Katzenstein and Tsujinaka, 1991; Thornton,1992). Leaders of the omnipresent crime pre-vention associations across the country tend tobe elderly, male, and conservative and also tendto enjoy social status and have the ability to ren-der financial support to police activities (Bay-ley, 1991:90). The largely anecdotal evidence,however, has not been tested with empiricalsurvey data. These descriptions of the relation-ship are largely based on highly selective obser-vations and personal interviews.

Skepticism about the accuracy of these ob-servations and their resulting image of a benignneighborhood-level police officer working in aculturally supportive environment exists (Stein-hoff, 1993). People who are skeptical of theclaims that the Japanese rate their police sub-stantially higher than does the American publicdo not have direct evidence of their own. Thismakes the current exploratory comparative quan-titative study more urgent and important.

METHODOLOGY

The Sample

The current study employs data from Japanand America covered in the World Values Sur-vey in 1981. This data collection is designed tofacilitate cross-national comparisons of basicvalues in a wide range of concerns. The surveyis based on national representative samples ofthe adult population in more than seventeen

Public Attitudes Toward Police

283

countries. For the current purpose, a total sam-ple of 2,474 persons is selected for the analysis:1,946 of them are Americans and 526 of themare Japanese. For a further discussion of the sur-vey, see World Values Study Group (1991).

The Dependent Variable

The dependent variable “confidence in thepolice” is measured by the item “How muchconfidence do you have in the police: Is it agreat deal, quite a lot, not very much, or none atall? Respondents can choose from the followingresponses: 1

5

a great deal, 2

5

quite a lot, 3

5

not very much, 4

5

none at all. The order of theanswers is reversed in this study so that thehigher score would indicate the higher confi-dence in the police: 3

5

a great deal, 2

5

quitea lot, 1

5

not very much, and 0

5

none at all.Thus, the original scale was subtracted from 4to form a new scale where 0

5

low confidenceto 3

5

high confidence in the police.This variable taps the public’s global atti-

tudes toward the police as an institution in thesociety. It represents a generalized support forthe institution and it constitutes a reservoir ofgoodwill normally directed toward the institu-tion rather than particular incumbents (Dennis,1976). A limitation is that the dependent vari-able is measured in terms of a single item of aglobal attitude. The global attitudes, however,have been reported to be fairly stable over time;they are also highly correlated with (Frank etal., 1996) and predictive of specific attitudes(Brandl et al., 1994).

The Independent Variables

The major independent variable, nation, is adummy variable, with 1

5

Japan and 0

5

America. In addition, variables that could con-found the relationship between the global atti-tude toward the police and the effect of the na-tion are included as control variables in themultivariate analyses. These variables are clas-sified into three groups: (1) demographic vari-ables, (2) social bond variables, and (3) a groupof attitudinal variables thought to be predictiveof confidence in the police.

Demographic variables.

Three demographiccontrols are included in the analysis.

1. Age is measured as the respondent’s actual agein years at the time of the survey. Aging is gen-erally a process that promotes conservatismand integration into the institutional order. Thisstudy tests the thesis that as age increases, sodoes confidence in the police.

2. Education is assessed with the available data inthe survey as an ordinal variable, where 1

5

low (did not complete high school), 2

5

me-dium (completed high school), and 3

5

high(some college and more).

3. Gender is measured using a binary variablewhere male

5

1 and female

5

0. It is expectedthat females and the less educated have greaterconfidence in the police.

Social bond variables.

Bonds to existing so-cial institutions that might draw out conserva-tive ideology and support for the status quo aremeasured in the following manner: (1) marriageis measured as a binary variable where 1

5

married and 0

5

all other marital statuses; (2)parenting is measured as a binary variablewhere 1

5

reports having had at least one childand 0

5

all others; (3) employment status ismeasured as a binary variable where 1

5

em-ployed and 0

5

all others; and finally, (4) religi-osity is measured as the frequency of church at-tendance on a scale from 0

5

less than once ayear through 7

5

more than once a week.

Attitudinal variables.

Five attitudinal vari-ables are included in the analysis. First, deviantsubculture, which is an index of the acceptanceof criminal behavior, is formed from sevenavailable attitudinal measures in the survey. It iscontended that persons who are less willing toaccept the legal order will tend to have a nega-tive view of its enforcers, the police, as well.The seven times all have the same lead-in ques-tion: “Please tell me for each of the followingstatements whether you think it can always bejustified, never be justified, or something in be-tween: (1) cheating on tax if you have thechance, (2) buying something you knew wasstolen, (3) taking and driving away a car youknew belonged to someone else, (4) taking thedrug marijuana or hashish, (5) someone accept-ing a bribe in the course of their duties, (6)fighting with the police, (7) failing to report

284

L. CAO, S. STACK, and Y. SUN

damage you’ve done accidentally to a parkedvehicle.” The responses range from 1

5

neverthrough 10

5

always. The index of the deviantsubculture is calculated as the sum of the sevenitems. This is the only variable marked by aproblem of skewness. It is treated with a logtransformation to address this problem accord-ingly.

3

Second, political conservatism is measuredin terms of the survey’s left-right political ideol-ogy index: “In political matters, people talk ofthe left and the right. How would you placeyour views on this scale generally speaking?”The responses range from 1

5

extreme left to10

5

extreme right. Third, alienation or a senseof meaninglessness is measured using the fol-lowing question: “How often do you have thefeeling that life is meaningless?” The respon-dent’s options are from 0

5

never through 3

5

often.Fourth, personal satisfaction is assessed. Re-

spondents’ feelings of confidence in social in-stitutions such as the police may also be a func-tion of a more basic personal satisfaction withtheir lives as a whole. To measure this sense ofpersonal confidence, an index of satisfactionand happiness composed of three measures isemployed. (1) Happiness (reverse coded): “Tak-ing all things considered, would you say you are0

5

not at all happy, 1

5

not very happy, 2

5

quite happy, 3

5

very happy.” (2) Financial sat-isfaction: “How satisfied are you with the finan-cial situation of your household?” Choices are 1

5

dissatisfied through 10

5

satisfied. (3) Overallsatisfaction: “All things considered, how satis-fied are you with your life as a whole thesedays?” Choices are 1

5

dissatisfied through 10

5

satisfied. These three measures of satisfactionand happiness are fairly highly correlated (.54,.45, and .28 in the pooled sample), and so theyare combined into the index called satisfactionthrough a principal components analysis.

Finally, confidence in the police may also bea function of respondents’ confidence in con-trolling their own personal lives. Locus of con-trol is assessed using the following question:“Some people feel they have complete freechoice and control over the way their lives turnout, and other people feel that what they them-selves do has no real effect on what happens to

them. Please use this scale to determine howmuch freedom and control you feel you haveover the way your life turns out.” The responsesare coded from 1

5

none at all through 10

5

agreat deal.

FINDINGS

Table 1 compares the mean values of the de-pendent variable and selected independent vari-ables for the United States and Japan. The meanscore of confidence in the police is 1.84 in Ja-pan, which is lower than the 1.98 for the UnitedStates. Further, this difference in mean scores isstatistically significant (

p

,

.05).The two nations also differ significantly in

four of the demographic and social bond vari-ables, with Japan being higher in the percent-ages of male respondents (56 percent in Japanversus 46 percent in the United States), of themarried (65 percent versus 54 percent), and ofthose employed full time (67 percent versus 62

T

ABLE

1

A C

OMPARISON

OF

M

EAN

D

IFFERENCES

OF

S

ELECTED

V

ARIABLES

BY

N

ATION

Variable Mean SDNumber of

Cases

Confidence in the policeJapan 1.84* .72 526U.S.A 1.98 .77 1,946

AgeJapan 41.13 16.06 526U.S.A 39.75 18.31 1,946

EducationJapan 2.09* .70 526U.S.A 2.30 .65 1,946

Gender (male

5

1)Japan .56* .50 526U.S.A. .46 .50 1,946

Marriage (yes

5

1)Japan .65* .48 526U.S.A. .54 .50 1,946

Parenting (yes

5

1)Japan .65 .48 526U.S.A. .65 .48 1,946

Employment (yes

5

1)Japan .67* .47 526U.S.A .62 .48 1,946

* Significant difference exists between the two groups (

p

,

.05)

Public Attitudes Toward Police

285

percent). The United States is higher than Japanin educational achievement. There is no statisti-cally significant difference between the two na-tions in their mean levels of age and the per-centage that reports having had children.

Using multiple regression analyses, Table 2explores whether controlling for the differencesin sample characteristics would render the meandifference found in confidence in the policespurious. The results for the pooled sample in-clude both American and Japanese respondents.Panel A gives the results with the main indepen-dent variable nation, three demographic con-trols, and four social bond variables in the equa-tion. Controlling for the other variables in theequation, Japanese respondents continue toshow less confidence in the police than theAmericans. The coefficient of the confidencevariable is over 2.7 times its standard error. Inaddition, older persons, married persons, per-sons with children, and more religious peoplehave more confidence in the police than younger,unmarried, childless, and less religious people.

The finding that the Japanese people have lessconfidence in the police than American peoplecould still be spurious. In order to test this pos-sibility, more controls for the attitudinal vari-ables are added to the equation.

Table 2, Panel B, provides the results of themodel with five attitudinal controls added to theanalysis. Controlling for the other independentvariables, Japanese respondents still have sig-nificantly less confidence in the police thanAmericans. The coefficient is 1.879 times itsstandard error (significant at .05 level with aone-tailed test). The effect of being Japanese onconfidence in the police is evidently weakenedby the introduction of controls for attitudinalvariables, but it remains significant. Age andparenting continue to be significant predictorsof confidence in the police, while the effects ofmarriage and religiosity become insignificant.Higher scores in the deviant subculture indexand alienation reduce substantially confidencein the police, while higher scores in conserva-tism and satisfaction in life increases it signifi-cantly. Locus of control is not related to confi-dence in the police. From the standardizedcoefficients, age (

b

5

.13) and deviant subcul-ture (

b

5

.13) are the two variables mostclosely associated with the variance of confi-dence in the police.

Finally, Table 3 attempts to explore whethersocial determinants of confidence in the policeare similar or different for the two nations. Twoequations were developed to analyze data sepa-rately for the two nations. Columns 2 and 3 pro-vide the results of the analysis for Japan. Con-trolling for the other variables in the equation,the leading correlate of confidence in the policeis age (

b

5

.20). As expected, the older the age,the greater the confidence in the police. Politi-cal conservatism is the second most importantdeterminant (

b 5 .18). The index of satisfactionis also positively related to confidence in thepolice, as expected. Other control variables arenot significantly related to confidence in the po-lice. The model explains approximately 12 per-cent of the variance in Japanese confidence inthe police.

Table 3, columns 4 and 5, present the resultsof multiple regression analysis of the Americansample. As in the case of Japan, respondents’

TABLE 2

THE IMPACT OF NATION ON CONFIDENCE IN THE POLICE

IndependentVariables

Panel A Panel B

b b b b

Nation (Japan 5 1) 2.108* 2.057 2.077* 2.041

Age .008* .175 .005* .126Education 2.025 2.021 2.025 2.022Gender

(male 5 1) 2.055 2.035 2.049 2.032Marriage

(yes 5 1) .081* .053 .036 .024Parenting

(yes 5 1) 2.095* 2.059 2.099* 2.062Employment

(yes 5 1) 2.044 2.028 2.041 2.026Religiosity .026* .080 .012 .039Deviant

subculture 2.195* 2.127Conservatism .029* .077Alienation 2.040* 2.045Satisfactions .047* .084Locus of control .011 .032Constant 1.707* 2.120*R-square .052 .091F 16.725 18.877Significance .000 .000

*p # .05.

286 L. CAO, S. STACK, and Y. SUN

age, political conservatism, and satisfaction inlife are positively related to confidence in thepolice. Unlike the situation in Japan, however,the factor most closely tied to the variance in con-fidence in the police in the United States is theindex of the deviant subculture. The greater theperceived justification of criminal behavior, thelower the confidence in the police (b 5 2.16).Furthermore, the two social bond variables—parenting and religiosity—are significantly as-sociated with confidence in the police. Personswith a child have lower confidence in the po-lice, while more religious people (those who at-tend churches more frequently) have higherconfidence in the police. The effects of thesethree variables on the public attitudes towardthe police have not been investigated widely inthe United States police literature. More studyis needed to examine these relationships. Theremaining variables in the equation are not sta-tistically significant. The model explains 9 per-cent of the variance in American confidence inthe police.

DISCUSSION

Previous research on the police-public rela-tionship in Japan has been based largely on aqualitative methodology. This work has gener-ally built an image of popular support and con-fidence of the Japanese people in their policingsystem. Further, it is generally thought that theJapanese are probably more confident in theirpolice than are Americans. There has been adearth of survey research to test this general as-sertion, however. The present study helps to fillthis gap in the research. An analysis of datataken from the World Values Survey suggeststhat the Japanese actually have less confidencein their police than do Americans. This effectholds true even after introducing a number ofcontrols in the multiple regression analyses.

This study represents the first effort in ex-ploring the quantitative differences in attitudestoward the police between the Japanese andAmericans. As such, the findings must beviewed as suggestive and not as definitive. Al-though the samples are representative, the sur-vey itself is not specifically designed for crimi-nologists to investigate the public attitudetoward the police. Consequently, many salientvariables that might have been controlled arenot in the survey. For example, the key culturaldifferences between the two nations in the areaof crime control—shame and collectivism—arenot well captured. At the same time, the unidi-mensional item of the attitude toward the policemay not be specific enough given the complexacross-nation comparison. Finally, some mea-sures may be inaccurate correlates for analyzingattitudes toward the police. For instance, churchattendance may be a proxy measure of religios-ity in the United States, but it is not a goodproxy for measuring the religiosity in Japan,where attending a Buddhist temple or a Shintoshrine is not a weekly event nor an activity ofregular occurrence. Future studies need to ad-dress these issues more rigorously.

In spite of these limitations, the current datado have an advantage: the survey instrument isthe same internationally. Since the World Val-ues Survey has been translated into at least adozen different languages and has been used foryears to compare the core values in different

TABLE 3

THE SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF CONFIDENCE IN THE POLICE IN JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES

IndependentVariables

Equation for Japan

Equation for U.S.A.

b b b b

Age .009* .196 .005* .110Education 2.001 2.001 2.024 2.020Gender

(male 5 1) 2.065 2.045 2.050 2.032Marriage

(yes 5 1) 2.084 2.055 .049 .032Parenting

(yes 5 1) .015 .010 2.125* 2.077Employment

(yes 5 1) .041 .027 2.068 2.043Religiosity 2.037 2.074 .017* .053Deviant

subculture 2.100 2.064 2.236* 2.155Conservatism .073* .179 .017* .046Alienation 2.080 2.082 2.031 2.035Satisfactions .053* .097 .044* .077Locus of control .008 .023 .013 .035Constant 1.498* 2.308*R-square .119 .090F 5.745 15.844Significance .000 .000

*p # .05.

Public Attitudes Toward Police 287

languages and cultures, there seems to be noreason to question its functional validity in Jap-anese and in English. There is at least some evi-dence to conclude, therefore, that the differencein the level of confidence in the police is notmerely an artifact of translation. Additional re-sults from this analysis, such as age, deviantsubculture, conservatism, and satisfactions, en-hance the confidence in validity of the findingsin this domain.

The present analyses offer some intriguingand thought-provoking findings. That the Japa-nese have less confidence in their police,though unexpected, is possible. Japan and theUnited States differ in one crucial historicalcondition: the Japanese people suffered from anall-powerful and all-intruding fascist govern-ment during World War II. The police, as a re-pressive tool of that government, did terriblethings to the public. Literature written in En-glish on the police in Japan usually does not dis-cuss the Japanese police during World War II(Ames, 1981; Bayley, 1976, 1991; Parker,1984; Westermann and Burfeind, 1991).

With this history of the Japanese police inmind, the finding that the Japanese have lowerconfidence in their police may be less puzzling,and it is quite consistent with the world compar-ative literature on confidence in the police. Thelower public confidence toward the police incountries with fascist governments is not uniquein Japan. A recent study, for example, foundthat the people of many other European coun-tries with histories of fascist governments, suchas Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain,tend to have lower confidence in the police thando the American public (Stack and Cao, 1998).

The finding that the Japanese have less con-fidence in their police than do Americans is im-portant, for it may clarify some issues in thestudy of Japanese society in general, and of thepolice-community relationship in particular. Inthe past, scholars of Japanese police did not dif-ferentiate compliance with the police from con-fidence in the police. This study suggests thatseeming compliance with the police does notnecessarily mean confidence in the police. TheJapanese outward compliance with the policeout of cultural heritage, as observed by manyscholars, may hide some of their deep suspi-

cions about the police. Future investigationneeds to separate these two issues in examiningthe Japanese public’s attitudes toward the police.

The correlates of confidence in the police aresomewhat different in the two nations. On theone hand, three commonalities—age, conserva-tism, and satisfaction—are found to be signifi-cant predictors of confidence in the police inboth nations. The older, more conservative, andmore satisfied one is, the higher the confidencein the police. This finding suggests that confi-dence in the police is a derivative of the statusquo and of a larger value system, herein a polit-ical orientation in both societies. There are,thus, good theoretical grounds for asserting thatthe same general model of public opinionsholds true for both nations.

On the other hand, this study shows that sup-port of a deviant subculture, parenting, and reli-giosity predict confidence in the police inAmerica, but not in Japan. The question arising,then, is whether the Japanese and American re-sults also differ in the ways to be expected,given the differences in the two societies. Partof the current results appear to indicate so.

Despite the similarities mentioned above,major differences, however, are found amongsocial bond variables—marriage, parenting,employment, and religiosity. The directions ofthese four variables, regardless of their statisti-cal significance, all turn out to be opposite toeach other for the two societies. It is possiblethat these social bonds might have captured theunmeasured underlying concept of individual-ism and collectivism—the watershed of the twocultures. Thus, future studies are needed for in-vestigating these effects of the differentiation,which might also shed light on the larger debateas to why crime rates are lower in Japan than inthe United States.

NOTES

1. It is said that the Japanese prime minister’s office con-ducts an annual survey that every two to three years in-cludes questions on the police. Little published information,however, is available on the results.

2. Minorities in the United States appear to evaluate lawenforcement less favorably than their majority Caucasiancounterparts (Albrecht and Green, 1977; Carter, 1985; Peek,Lowe, and Alston, 1981; Webb and Marshall, 1995). A re-

288 L. CAO, S. STACK, and Y. SUN

cent study, however, has reported that no significant differ-ences exist between the two groups once other factors arecontrolled for (Cao, Frank, and Cullen, 1996), and anotherstudy has found that African-Americans are more satisfiedwith the police than Caucasians in Detroit (Frank et al.,1996). This issue will not be explored in this study becausethe minority-majority relationship is not a major issue inJapan.

3. After log transformation, the skewnesses for the indexof the deviant subculture are .64 for the pool sample, .59 forthe United States sample, and .81 for the Japanese sample.

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