When there are major international events in Tokyo the 警視庁 calls on reinforcements from other prefectures, and you get amusing scenes of people stopping a cop to ask for directions somewhere and getting “I have no idea, ma’am, I’m from Yamaguchi” as a reply.

Wait, so what is it that the keisatsucho does again?

(Checks NPA site)

So the National Public Safety Commission is an independent body under the prime minister’s jurisdiction. The NPSC, chaired by a government-appointed state minister (currently Tsutomu Sato, LDP diet member who also has the “Okinawa and Northern Territories” and “Disaster Prevention” portfolios), then “administratively supervises” the NPA as a kind of board of directors and sets basic national policy priorities, deciding police training and ensuring uniformity among the forces, and a broad mission to “coordinate” necessary matters. Steps are taken to ensure neutrality of membership such as a five year term, requiring both Diet houses to approve each member, and barring more than two members from being part of the same political party.

The NPA then plays the working-level role of implementing and filling in the details of the NPSC-decided policies. They are the ones who submit the national police budget proposals to the Ministry of Finance, and hence stories of evil foreign crime come from here. The NPA provides “supervision and control within the agency’s defined duties” of prefectural police authorities along similar lines.

The “administrative supervision” role over the prefectural police, however, is played by the prefectural public safety commissions, which are commissioned and by the prefectural governor, under limitations intended to ensure political neutrality. The management is directed by the prefectural commissions independent of the national commission, aside from the overarching national policy-setting (the NPA apparently recommends crackdowns on foreign criminals, etc).

:deep breath:

Source: Awesomely bad NPA English website:
http://www.npa.go.jp/english/kokusai/index.htm

BTW, looks like the French organization is simply the “Prefecture of Police”, with a prefecture being not a regional government but a government body headed by a “Prefect,” who is appointed by the president. Also interesting to note, which I did not know, that police in France are responsible for “monitoring alien residents.” Anyone here lived in France and know how it works?