Crime Control and Police-Community Relations: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Tokyo, Japan, and Santa Ana, California

Japan has the lowest crime rates in the industrialized world. Some of the reasons have to do with the lack of different, conflicting population groups; relative economic equality; racial homogeneity; pressure for individual conformity; and resilience of traditional values. But another reason appears to be community-based policing with grass-roots accountability. In the United States, many police resist and resent neighbor-based accountability, fearing at times that citizens will begin to tell them what to do. An exception is in Santa Ana, California, which, since the 1970s, has cut crime rates in half through proactive, rather than reactive, community-based policing, in which relations with citizens are much like those in Japan. Although cross-cultural transfer of crime-reduction strategies must be carried out with caution, there does appear to be potential for further successful adaptation of Japanese-type police-community partnerships in American cities.